THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


BENEFITS    FORGOT 


BY 

WOLCOTT  BALESTIER 

AUTHOR   OF 
REFFEY,    A    COMMON    STORY,    CAPTAIN    MY    CAPTAIN,    ETC. 


NEW     YORK 

D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
1894 


COPYRIGHT,  1893, 
BT  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


ELECTROTYPED  AND  PRINTED 
AT  THE  APPLETON  PRESS,  U.  S.  A. 


Freeze,  freeze,  thou  bitter  sky, 
That  dost  not  trite  so  nigh 

As  Irniefits  forgot : 
Though  thou  the  waters  warp, 
Thy  sting  is  not  so  sharp 

As  friend  remembered  not. 


BENEFITS    FOEGOT. 


I. 

IT  was  James  Deed's  wedding-morning,  and  the  town 
knew  it.  Deed  himself  was  so  full  of  the  knowledge  of  it 
that  his  face  would  break  from  time  to  time,  without  his 
will,  into  a  fond  and  incommunicable  smile  of  happiness 
as  he  rode  along  towards  Maverick  on  his  horse.  His  eye 
measured  the  crisp  and  sparkling  Colorado  morning ;  and 
he  took  the  sun  upon  his  large,  wholesome,  likable  face, 
with  the  pleasant  feeling  that  its  shining  was  for  him. 
The  agreeable  world  seemed  to  have  him  in  thought,  and 
to  be  minded  to  do  the  handsome  thing  by  his  wedding- 
day.  And  the  evil  things,  the  blizzards  and  sand-storms, 
and  the  winds  that  will  be  howling  at  all  hours  in  Col 
orado,  shunned  the  face  of  this  thrice-blessed  day. 

The  cattle  pony  which  Deed  was  riding  had  got  the 
news  of  the  kindling  morning-  air,  though  he  lacked  word 
of  the  wedding;  but  it  was  enough  that  he  also  knew 
what  it  was  to  be  happy.  Deed  patted  his  flank  affec 
tionately,  as  they  swung  into  town  together ;  and  he  was 
of  a  mind  to  give  good  morrow  to  the  herd  that  came  to 
the  barbed-wire  fence  to  observe  his  happiness  with  im 
passive  eyes.  It  was  too  early  to  see  Margaret ;  but  when 
he  had  waked  at  the  ranch  house  on  his  cattle-range, 


2  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

where  he  had  spent  the  last  few  days,  he  had  found  it 
impossible  to  remain  quietly  within  doors,  and  since  he 
must  ride,  it  was  the  nearest  thing  to  seeing  her  to  ride 
in  her  direction. 

The  curtains  were  still  down  at  the  windows  of  the 
house  where  Margaret  had  been  staying  with  Beatrice 
Vertner  for  a  month.  The  Vertners  occupied  the  largest 
dwelling  in  Maverick  except  the  brick  house  which 
Snell  had  built  since  he  had  made  his  strike  at  Aspen ; 
its  architecture  was  in  the  journeyman  carpenter  Queen 
Anne-manner  common  to  Western  towns  which  have 
reached  their  second  stage.  The  pony,  accustomed  to  stop 
ping,  swerved  in  towards  the  gate,  and  Deed  was  obliged 
to  restrain  him,  unwillingly.  There  was  no  one  in  sight  to 
mind  that  he  should  kiss  his  hand  to  a  certain  curtain  in 
the  second  story ;  but  he  was  obliged  to  content  himself 
with  this.  He  gave  the  pony  the  rein,  and  went  swinging 
into  Maverick  by  way  of  Mesa  street. 

His  eye  roved  anxiously,  with  another  thought,  as  he 
galloped  along,  over  the  circle  of  snow-peaks  that  separated 
Lone  Creek  Valley  from  the  world  outside,  and  rested  on 
a  cleft  in  the  white  hills  through  which  his  younger  son, 
Philip,  should  at  the  moment  be  making  his  way  from 
Pifion  on  horseback,  to  be  present  at  the  wedding  in  the 
afternoon. 

Zacatecas  Pass,  which  found  its  way  through  this 
breach  in  the  Sangre  de  Cristo  Range,  led  down,  at  a  point 
thirty  miles  above  Maverick,  to  the  railway  by  which 
Philip  should  be  taking  a  train  within  a  few  hours.  A 
dusty  cloud,  of  which  Deed  feared  he  knew  the  meaning, 
hung  above  the  trail.  It  seemed  probable  that  it  was 
snowing  in  the  mountains.  If  it  was,  Philip  would  almost 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  3 

certainly  fail  to  arrive  in  time :  it  was  equally  certain  that 
he  would  be  in  danger. 

There  had  been  a  thaw,  succeeded  by  freezing  weather, 
and  the  crusted  snow  clung  to  the  huge  mountain  shapes 
as  if  it  were  moulded  on  them. 

It  was  charming  to  follow  the  modelling  of  their  mighty 
bulks  under  the  conforming  vesture  of  white,  swelling  and 
dying  away  in  divine  suggestions  of  hidden  grace,  with 
the  effect  of  a  maiden's  raiment.  The  edged  lines  by 
which  the  hills  mounted  to  the  summits  lay  crumpled 
on  one  another,  buried  in  softness.  The  snow  plumped 
the  hollows ;  and  pursued  their  climbing  sides  to  the 
most  secret  fold.  The  angles  were  curves,  and  the  curves 
glistering  reaches  of  satin ;  for  at  every  point  the  sunlight 
meshed  itself  in  a  gleam  of  white,  and  the  whole  field  of 
snow  shone  with  a  blinding  glitter. 

In  fact,  the  polished  radiance  of  the  hills  gave  off  a 
glare  which  the  eye  could  not  meet  with  patience,  and 
Deed,  withdrawing  his  glance  from  the  mountains,  fixed 
it  on  the  scattered  town  into  which  [he  was  coming.  He 
knew  every  building  in  it ;  he  had  seen  most  of  them  go 
up.  He  remembered  when  the  general  supply-store  of 
Maverick  had  stood — if  a  tent  may  be  said  to  stand — where 
the  post-office  now  reared  its  ugly  splendour  of  brick,  stone- 
trimmed  and  mansard-roofed.  In  the  road  over  which 
he  was  riding  there  was  a  familiar  spot  where  an  embat 
tled  squatter  had  held  his  own  against  the  town  for  a 
twelvemonth,  refusing  to  move  the  log  cabin  which  he 
had  built  in  the  centre  of  Mesa  street  before  there  was  a' 
Mesa  street.  Deed  had  contributed  to  the  building  of  the 
Episcopal  church,  past  which  he  was  riding  at  the  mo 
ment;  and  as  he  glanced  at  its  roof  and  front,  he  was 


4-  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

sorry  that  he  had  not  put  aside  more  profitable  business 
long  enough  to.  get  himself  appointed  a  member  of  the 
committee  on  its  architecture.  He  tried  to  excuse  him 
self  by  remembering  that  he  had  insisted  on  the  simple 
and  genuine  Gothic  interior,  carried  out  in  pine,  which 
made  it  a  very  tolerable  little  church  within. 

He  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  roller  skating-rink, 
nor  with  the  Grand  Opera  House,  which  depressed  the 
observer  by  its  resemblance  to  Libby  Prison,  though  it 
was  an  achievement  of  wood,  and  clapboarded  up  to  the 
summit  of  its  false  front.  The  ingenuousness  of  the  pre 
tence  with  which  the  false  front  faces  down  the  spectator 
in  the  new  towns  of  the  West  would  be  almost  a  thing  to 
disarm  criticism  if  the  front,  in  itself,  were  more  beauti 
ful  ;  certainly  if  it  were  less  hideous  one  would  hardly  like 
to  humiliate  it  by  going  around  behind  and  spying  out 
the  nakedness  of  the  device. 

As  Deed's  eye  ranged  over  the  roofs  of  the  main  street 
behind  the  fronts,  he  smiled  at  the  disproportion  between 
the  actual  height  of  the  squat  buildings  and  the  height 
which  the  fronts  alleged  for  them.  His  happiness  gave 
an  edge  to  his  observation;  he  saw  familiar  things  as  if 
for  the  first  time.  On  the  treeless  plain  over  which 
Maverick  was  dispersed  nothing  obstructed  the  vision  for 
miles,  and  from  so  slight  an  elevation  as  that  along  which 
Deed  was  cantering  one  commanded  a  panoramic  view 
of  the  entire  place.  The  hotel  at  the  station,  the  public 
school  with  its  high  central  tower,  the  post-office,  and  the 
railway  hospital,  were  the  only  structures,  besides  the 
church,  which  lifted  themselves  about  the  level  of  the  pre 
vailing  one-  and  two-storied  buildings.  Except  in  the  main 
street,  the  dwelling-houses  lay  isolated  from  one  another 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  5 

in  archipelagoes,  marking  the  push  of  the  real-estate 
boom  to  one  and  another  corner  of  the  young  city. 

As  Deed  came  into  the  business  centre  of  the  place, 
distinguished  as  such  by  the  board  sidewalk  that  went 
loftily  along  the  thoroughfare  on  each  side  of  the  way,  by 
the  blazonries  in  red,  black,  and  chrome-yellow  on  the 
muslin  signs  tacked  upon  the  fronts  of  the  shops,  and  by 
the  tethered  cattle-ponies,  burros,  and  Studebaker  waggons 
of  the  ranchmen  who  began  to  come  into  town,  he  was 
hailed  by  a  loitering  group  gathered  about  a  telegraph- 
pole  in  front  of  the  post-office. 

"  Goin'  the  wrong  way  round,  ain't  you,  Mayor  ?  "  in 
quired  one  of  the  group. 

Deed  had  served  the  unexpired  term  of  a  mayor  of 
Maverick  who  had  suffered  the  inconvenience  of  being 
shot  in  the  early  days  of  the  town ;  and  the  usual  mili 
tary  titles  refusing  to  fasten  themselves  readily  to  a  cer 
tain  dignity  which  the  town  recognised  in  him,  it  had 
compromised  upon  "  Mayor,"  as  being  a  fortunate  com 
bination  of  the  respectful  and  the  jocular. 

Deed's  answering  smile  owned  the  impeachment  of  the 
humorous  reference ;  but  the  etiquette  of  Western  chaff  is 
not  to  sanction  such  an  understanding  with  speech.  It  is, 
rather,  de  rigueur  to  meet  such  references  with  a  heavenly 
unconsciousness  of  innocence,  and  to  own  them  only  deep 
within  the  understanding  eye,  which  admits  both  parties 
to  such  amenities  into  the  open  secret  of  the  no-secret. 

"  Well,  yes ;  for  Aspen  and  some  places  up  Eagle  River 
way  I'm  going  a  good  ways  around,  Burke,"  said  Deed, 
with  twinkling  eyes,  as  he  checked  the  pony ;  "  but  I'm 
headed  right  for  the  telegraph-office,  I  think,  unless  I've 
taken  my  observations  wrong." 


6  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

He  was  giving  his  pony  the  rein  as  some  one  said, 
"  There  was  some  tell  about  town  here,  Mr.  Mayor,  of 
your  having  asked  unanimous  consent  to  make  another 
matter  a  special  order  of  business  for  to-day."  The  post 
master,  who  had  served  a  term  in  the  legislature,  was  fond 
of  the  phrases  he  had  learned  at  Denver. 

"  Yes  ;  anything  we  can  do  for  you,  you  know,"  dark 
ly  intimated  the  young  fellow  on  whom  the  town's  repute 
for  the  possession  of  the  hardest  drinker  in  the  county  de 
pended.  On  Sundays  Sandy  was  the  sexton  of  the  Epis 
copal  church ;  other  days  he  divided  between  Ira's  and 
certain  odd  jobs. 

"  To  be  sure  ;  that  reminds  me — there  is  something 
you  can  do  for  me,  Sandy.  Ira  has  my  orders.  Call  on 
him  this  evening,  and  take  the  camp." 

"  Make  it  a  dozen,  Mayor,"  wheedled  Sandy. 

"  Couldn't,"  responded  Deed.  "  I've  made  it  two." 
He  smiled  at  the  group.  Sandy  guffawed  his  enjoyment 
of  the  prospect.  The  rest  coiled  their  tongues  deep  in 
their  cheeks,  shifted  the  pain  of  sustaining  their  bodies 
from  one  leg  to  the  other,  and  gazed  at  the  "  Mayor  "  with 
a  broad  smile. 

"  Denver  ?  "  asked  some  one. 

Deed  shook  his  head.     "  Y.  and  Z.'s." 

"  Bottles  ?  " 

"  Kegs." 

He  surveyed  the  grinning  group  with  a  smile,  as  he 
caught  up  the  reins.  The  points  at  which  he  differed 
from  them  were  perhaps  rather  more  obvious  at  the  mo 
ment  than  those  by  which  he  was  allied  to  the  life  of  the 
place  and  of  the  West.  In  spite  of  eight  years  spent  in 
the  "West,  broken  only  by  occasional  visits  to  his  old  home 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  Y 

in  New  York,  and,  while  Margaret  was  still  in  question, 
by  a  single  visit  to  Europe,  his  bearing  retained  a  sort  of 
distinction  which  no  measure  of  consent  to  a  civilization 
that  surveys  life  with  its  hands  in  its  pockets,  and  its 
trousers  in  its  boots,  was  likely  to  vitiate. 

In  being  unaggressive,  this  bearing  escaped  the  con 
demnation  under  which  all  forms  of  aloofness  from  the 
common  lot  properly  lie  in  the  West ;  and  in  being  on 
humorous  terms  with  itself,  it  rather  commended  itself 
than  otherwise  to  a  people  who  must  see  life  as  a  joke  if 
they  would  escape  seeing  it  as  a  tragedy.  It  was  far  from 
being  his  manner  of  distinction  that  gave  Deed  his  place 
in  the  regard  of  Maverick,  and  of  Lone  Creek  County,  of 
course  ;  and  it  was  scarcely  by  it  that  he  prevailed  in  his 
practice  before  the  Supreme  Court  at  Denver,  or  in  his 
tights  for  mineral  claims  at  Leadville.  He  counted,  as 
every  one  does  in  the  West  who  counts  at  all,  by  pure 
force. 

Deed  liked  the  West  as  men  like  what  serves  their 
ends,  and  for  something  more.  There  was  a  kind  of  ob 
ligation  of  gratitude  upon  him  to  like  it,  for  it  had  been 
his  rescue  from  lethargy  after  the  death  of  his  wife  in  New 
York  ten  years  before.  He  had  had  no  wish  to  live  when 
he  came  West,  and  his  friends  were  surprised  to  hear  after 
six  months  that  he  was  still  alive.  He  was  what  is  called 
"  a  very  sick  man  "  when  he  reached  Maverick ;  and  as  he 
was  also  a  very  miserable  one,  the  chances  that  he  would 
presently  be  borne  to  the  desolate  little  graveyard  on  the 
mesa  just  outside  the  limits  of  Maverick  were  rather  bet 
ter  than  the  chances  of  his  pulling  through  to  find  a  new 
strength  with  his  reviving  interest  in  life.  In  the  event 
he  not  only  "  came  around,"  as  the  neighbours  said,  but, 


g  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

in  laying  hold  upon  the  practice  of  his  profession  again, 
discovered  a  pleasure  in  pursuing  the  application  of  its 
principles  to  new  conditions. 

He  chaffed  the  West,  now,  when  he  met  a  man  who, 
like  himself,  had  once  been  a  New-Yorker  or  a  Bos- 
tonian ;  but  this  was  by  way  of  reminding  himself  to  re 
member  how  absurd  the  whole  affair  was,  after  all.  The 
real  fact  was,  that,  absorbed  in  his  work  in  creating  a 
future  for  his  boys,  and  finally  in  accumulating  the  for 
tune  which  he  had  seen  might  be  his  one  day  for  the  use 
of  the  needful  energy,  he  had  forgotten  to  philosophize 
the  West,  as  he  had  been  used  to  do  while  from  his  sick 
bed  he  lay  staring  idly  on  a  range  of  mountains  which  he 
remembered  thinking  too  big.  Consciously  or  uncon 
sciously,  he  had  cast  in  his  lot  with  this  huge,  crudely 
prosperous,  blundering,  untutored  land ;  and  if  he  had 
still  reserves,  there  was  never  time  left  from  his  mines,  his 
cattle,  and  his  law  to  think  of  them. 

He  was  putting  spurs  to  his  horse  as  Snell,  the  lead 
ing  merchant  of  the  place,  who  had  just  joined  the  group, 
inquired  suggestively,  "  The  young  men  will  hardly  arrive 
in  time  for  the  ceremony,  I  take  it,  Mr.  Deed?" 

"  I  don't  know,  Mr.  Snell,"  said  Deed,  restraining  the 
pony,  which  was  chafing  to  be  off  again.  "  I  hope  to  see 
Philip.  He's  dropped  his  mining  experiment  up  at 
Pifion,  at  my  suggestion,  and  he  will  get  through  by  the 
two-thirty  train,  I  hope,  if  he  gets  over  the  Pass  all  right. 
I  don't  know  whether  to  hope  that  he  has  left  Laughing 
Valley  City  or  not.  I'm  just  on  my  way  to  the  telegraph- 
office  to  inquire."  He  cast  a  doubtful  look  towards  Zaca- 
tecas  Pass. 

"Looks  some  like  snow  up  around   the  Pass,"  com- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  9 

mented  one  of  those  young  men  of  middle  age  who,  in 
the  West,  somehow  keep  the  sap  of  youth  jogging  lustily 
in  their  veins  at  an  age  when  it  has  dried  out,  or  soaked 
down  into  the  roots,  of  New  England  men.  It  is  possible 
that  the  speculative  fancy  of  man  does  not  engender  a 
new  scheme  with  every  moon  for  nothing. 

"  It  does  look  like  snow,"  owned  Deed,  as  he  glanced 
anxiously  again  towards  the  mountains ;  and  some  one 
ventured  to  ask  him  about  Jasper.  "  He  was  detained  by 
business  in  New  York,"  he  said,  at  which  Snell  exchanged 
a  significant  glance  with  his  neighbour.  He  hardly  ex 
pected  him  for  the  wedding,  Deed  added.  It  was  pretty 
well  known  in  Maverick  that  Jasper  wasted  no  approval 
on  his  father's  second  marriage ;  and  there  were  persons 
who  saw  dubious  things  beneath  the  peremptory  summons 
which  he  had  given  out  a  fortnight  ago  as  calling  him  to 
New  York. 

As  Deed,  to  cut  short  the  embarrassment  of  this  line 
of  questioning,  definitively  caught  up  the  reins,  and  gave 
the  pony  a  cut  with  the  quirt,  the  group  gathered  about 
him  lifted  their  sombreros,  or  such  rakish  or  merely 
slovenly  caps  as  they  wore,  and  swung  them  about  their 
heads  in  the  burlesque  by  which  Western  manners  express 
their  condescension  to  the  customs  of  a  superseded  civil 
ization.  It  was  not  a  bow,  nor  precisely  a  ceremony  of 
farewell,  but  a  mixed  expression  of  thanks  for  the  "  irri 
gation  "  to  be  offered  at  Ira's  in  the  evening,  and  of  an 
embarrassed  sentiment  of  congratulation  on  the  event  of 
the  day,  which  did  not  quite  know  the  smartest  way  of 
conveying  itself. 

When  some  one  inquired,  "What's  the  matter  with 
James  Deed,  Esquire  ?  "  and  the  crowd  gave  the  f oreor- 


10  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

dained  answer  with  a  single  voice,  they  had  really  done 
for  him  all  that  one  sovereign  can  do  for  another  in  the 
way  of  expression  of  good  will :  it  was  frankincense  and 
myrrh,  and  oil  and  wine  and  precious  stones,  offered  him 
on  a  tray  of  gold,  if  you  like.  It  was  meant  for  the  same 
thing,  and  Deed  did  not  like  it  less.  He  turned  in  his 
saddle,  and  waved  his  own  wide-brimmed  hat  to  them  in 
acknowledgment,  his  fine  smile  on  his  lips. 

The  Colorado  sunshine  was  flooding  the  room  in 
which  Margaret  awaited  his  coming,  without  let  from 
blinds  or  shades.  She  stood  in  the  big  patch  of  radiance 
flung  upon  a  rag  carpet  past  fear  of  fading,  and  looked 
wistfully  out  of  the  window.  The  house  stood  a  little 
apart,  at  the  head  of  Mesa  street,  the  chief  thoroughfare 
of  Maverick,  near  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and,  in  the 
clear  mountain  air  she  could  see  for  a  long  distance  down 
the  road. 

Breakfast  was  over,  and  Beatrice  Vertner  had  left  her 
to  attend  to  some  household  duties,  which  weddings  ap 
parently  do  not  make  less  important  in  their  process  of 
dwarfing  all  other  concerns. 

A  quarrel  between  father  and  son,  Margaret  was  say 
ing  to  herself,  as  she  stood  by  the  window, — it  had  not 
come  to  that  yet,  but  that  Jasper's  opposition  to  his 
father's  second  marriage  had  been  saved  from  that  only 
by  the  moderation  and  temperance  of  her  husband  who 
was  to  be,  she  felt  sure, — seemed,  at  best,  a  wretched  busi 
ness  ;  but  this  was,  she  felt,  unbearably  sad.  In  the 
foolish  days  when  she  was  saying  Deed  nay  because  she 
did  not  yet  know  herself,  and  he  was  following  her  from 
New  York  to  Paris,  and  from  Paris  to  Geneva,  and  from 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  H 

Geneva  to  Naples,  patient,  decently  doubtful  of  himself, 
but  persistent,  she  had  seen  what  it  cost  him  merely  to  be 
separated  from  his  sons.  Later,  she  had  come  to  under 
stand  how  the  obligation  he  had  felt  to  find  something 
within  himself  to  replace  the  tender  care  of  the  mother 
his  boys  had  lost  before  they  were  old  enough  to  know 
the  meaning  of  such  a  loss,  must  have  reacted  upon  and  en 
riched  his  feeling  for  them.  She  remembered  how,  seeing 
that  his  concern  for  their  welfare  was  the  substance  aud 
texture  of  his  life,  she  had  warned  him — it  was  at  Naples 
— that  such  affection  as  his  played  with  high  stakes ;  and 
how  his  face  had  darkened  almost  angrily  at  her  hint  of 
the  possibility  that  sons  might  disappoint  one's  faith  in 
them. 

Just  before  their  first  meeting  Deed  had  bought  and 
stocked  for  his  boys  the  cattle-range  from  which  she 
hoped  he  was  riding  in  at  this  hour,  and  Jasper  was  estab 
lished  there  in  undivided  charge  until  Philip,  then  in 
the  first  year  of  one  of  his  foolish  boy's  experiments  in 
Chile,  should  be  ready  to  come  back  and  take  his  share  in 
the  management.  She  recalled  well  enough  how  she  had 
rallied  their  father's  unwitting  boasts  of  Jasper's  success, 
how  she  had  assisted  with  inward  amusement  at  the  pre 
tence  that  he  kept  his  fatherly  fondness  covert  by  banter 
ing  it  with  her,  and  how,  when  that  was  his  mood,  she  had 
seemed  to  consent  to  his  transparent  vainglory  in  the 
shrewdness  of  his  clever  young  men  of  twenty-four  as  a 
natural  enthusiasm  about  a  successful  venture  of  his  own. 
But  constantly  she  had  the  sense  of  his  loving  pride  in 
both  his  boys ;  and  she  liked  it. 

Deed  could  not  have  told  her,  even  if  his  knowledge 
of  it  had  got  out  of  the  region  of  half-perceptions  in 


12  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

which  we  keep  our  reluctances  about  the  faults  of  those 
we  love,  that  Jasper  belonged  to  the  Race  of  the  Magnifi 
cent,  who  have  their  own  way — a  happy  provision  arrang 
ing  that  no  one  shall  find  it  worth  quite  what  it  costs  to 
oppose  such  ways.  When  Margaret  discovered  it  for  her 
self,  she  had  only  to  put  it  with  familiar  characteristics  of 
Deed  to  understand  how  the  partnership  papers  in  the 
range,  which  were  the  origin  of  the  present  difficulty,  had 
got  themselves  signed. 

When  Deed,  in  good-humoured  recognition  of  Jasper's 
successful  management  of  the  range,  had  offered  him  a 
half-share  in  the  profits  from  it  until  Philip  should- be 
ready  to  claim  the  third  already  belonging  in  all  but  form 
to  each  of  the  boys,  it  was  like  Jasper  to  say  that  it  was  very 
good  of  his  father,  and  that  they  ought  to  "  put  the  thing 
on  a  business  basis."  But  it  was  rather  more  like  Deed, 
whose  pride  in  Jasper's  business  shrewdness  commonly 
took  shape  before  the  young  man  himself  in  a  habit  of 
ridiculing  him  indulgently  about  it,  to  have  laughed  at 
him,  and  consented.  And  it  was  not  less  of  a  tenor  with 
their  usual  relation  that  he  should  have  let  Jasper  have 
his  way  about  giving  this  profit-sharing,  for  a  limited 
term,  the  form  of  a  partnership. 

About  his  own  way  Margaret  knew  he  would  have  no 
conceit,  while  regarding  the  symmetry  of  his  act  in  giving 
Jasper  something  like  the  reward  his  faithfulness  and 
sagacity  in  the  management  of  the  ranch  had  earned  he 
would  have  a  certain  pride.  For  Margaret,  who,  for  her 
own  part,  had, ever  frugalities  and  cautions  to  be  satisfied 
before  she  could  be  about  a  matter,  both  understood  and 
admired  the  recklessness  with  which  Deed  was  accus 
tomed  to  do  a  nice  thing  thoroughly.  To  her  it  was  an 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  13 

inevitable  touch  of  character  that  he  should  have  glanced 
over  the  papers  of  partnership  which  Jasper  had  drawn 
up,  should  have  signed  with  a  smile  for  his  gratification 
in  doing  an  entirely  gratifying  thing,  and  then  should 
have  had  the  boy  to  supper  with  him  at  the  only  restau 
rant  in  town,  where  they  drank  to  the  success  of  the 
range  in  the  champagne  which  had  been  left  over  from 
the  previous  night's  supper  of  the  Order  of  the  Occidental 
Star. 

Deed  had  not  meant  to  marry  again,  then,  of  course, 
and  the  cattle-range  was  then  an  incident  of  his  fortune, 
instead  of  one  of  the  main  facts  of  it,  as  it  presently  be 
came. 

When  he  first  thought  of  Margaret  he  congratulated 
himself  that  there  was  still  the  ranch,  for,  at  a  little  past 
forty,  he  found  himself  through  the  scoundrelly  trick  of  a 
man  he  had  trusted,  almost  as  entirely  on  his  own  hands 
as  he  had  been  at  twenty — w^th  a  fortune  to  be  won  again, 
and  with  life  to  be  begun  pretty  much  afresh.  When  this 
trouble  came  on  him  he  thought  of  the  boys ;  remembered 
with  satisfaction  that  they  were  provided  for,  whatever 
came ;  shrugged  his  shoulders  ;  took  a  look  at  himself  in 
the  glass,  measured  himself  thoughtfully  against  the  fu 
ture,  brushed  the  black  lock  down  over  the  fringe  of  gray 
in  front;  smiled;  went  out  and  had  a  good  dinner;  and 
began  again  that  afternoon.  A  year  later,  when  he  first 
offered  himself  to  Margaret,  it  was  pleasant  to  know  that 
the  ranch  was  now  not  quite  all-  (some  of  his  mining 
stocks  were  doing  better) ;  but  the  third  interest,  that 
would  still  remain  to  him  when  Philip  should  have 
claimed  his  share  in  the  range  had  not  lost  its  importance 
to  him.  And  Jasper  had  done  wonderful  things  with  the 


14  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

enterprise  since  they  had  pledged  each  other  in  the  bad 
wine  of  the  "  Delmonico  of  the  West." 

It  was  a  little  later  that  there  began  to  be  discoverable 
in  Jasper's  manner  the  hints  of  opposition  to  his  father's 
second  marriage  which  had  lately  come  near  ending  in  an 
estrangement  between  father  and  son.  The  difference 
between  them  was,  after  all,  but  scantily  patched  up ;  and 
on  the  head  of  it  Jasper  had  set  out  for  New  York,  know 
ing  that  he  could  not  be  back  in  time  for  the  wedding, 
and  leaving  w.ord  that  he  would  write  his  father  regard 
ing  another  matter  which  Deed  had  broached  to  him  just 
before  his  departure.  The  other  matter  was  the  reorgani 
zation  of  the  arrangement  at  the  ranch  to  include  Philip, 
who  had  given  over  mining,  after  a  twelvemonth  in  the 
mountains. 

He  had  gone  to  PifLon  on  his  return  from  Chile,  with 
his  young  man's  interest  in  anything  rather  than  the 
usual  and  appointed  thing  lying  ready  to  his  hand ;  but 
he  was  now  willing  enough  to  accept  his  father's  advice 
of  a  year  before,  and  to  join  Jasper  in  looking  after  the 
ranch,  where  an  assured  income  awaited  him.  Deed  had 
wished  to  see  this  wandering,  impulsive,  hot-blooded,  un 
settled  son  of  his  actually  established  on  the  range  before 
his  marriage  to  Margaret.  Unexpected  events  at  Pifion 
had  prevented  this  ;  but  when  he  should  come  down  for 
the  wedding  it  was  arranged  that  he  was  not  to  return, 
but  was  to  take  up  his  residence  at  the  ranch  immedi 
ately. 

If  this  provision  for  Philip's  future  had  not  already 
been  made  when  Margaret  first  began  to  be  in  question, 
Deed  could  not  have  asked  her  to  marry  him.  He  felt, 
in  a  degree  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  represent,  his- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  15 

responsibilities  to  his  boys ;  and  the  long  habit  of  making 
them  the  first  concern  of  his  life  must  Kave  prevailed 
with  him,  whatever  his  feeling  for  Margaret,  if  they  had 
needed  anything  done  for  them.  But  the  ranch  was  a 
property  which,  conducted  with  any  skill,  must  yield 
them  both  a  handsome  revenue,  when  both  should  be 
established  on  it. 

Margaret  liked  the  faithfulness  to  the  future  of  his 
sons,  which  would  not  suffer  him  to  put  even  her,  or  their 
common  happiness,  before  it.  He  was  determined  to 
leave  nothing  at  loose  ends ;  and  he  was  even  awaiting 
the  formality  of  Jasper's  assent  to  the  new  arrangement 
at  the  ranch,  as  if  it  were  an  assent  which  he  was  free  to 
withhold — as  if  all  property  of  his  boys  in  the  ranch 
were  not  derived  from  his  generosity,  and  as  if  Jasper's 
present  tenure  were  not  peculiarly  by  grace  of  his  father's 
good  humour.  It  was  only  a  form ;  but  Margaret  knew 
that  Deed  regarded  it  as  a .  sacred  preliminary  to  their 
marriage ;  and  when  she  saw  him  riding  up  to  the  door, 
waving  a  letter  in  his  hand,  she  knew  what  letter  it 
must  be. 

She  ran  out  into  the  frosty  air  to  meet  him.  Stand 
ing  on  the  porch,  under  the  shadow  of  the  scroll-saw 
work,  which  was  as  much  in  the  Queen  Anne  manner  as 
anything  about  the  house,  she  waited  for  him  to  tie  his 
horse,  cuddling  her  arms  about  her  waist.  The  air  had 
an  edge.  She  gathered  herself  together :  there  was  the 
cold  to  keep  out ;  and  there  was  a  soft,  interior  content 
which  she  was  willing  to  keep  in. 

It  was  hard  not  to  be  afraid  of  some  of  her  feelings 
lately. 

"  Watch  your  horse ! "  she  adjured,  with  a  little  nerv- 


16  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

ous  shiver.  He  was  trying  to  tie  the  pony  while  he  kept 
his  eyes  on  her,  and  the  tying  was  on  the  way  to  failure. 
He  had  taken  the  letter  in  his  mouth  for  greater  conven 
ience.  They  both  began  to  laugh,  so  that  he  had  to  take 
it  out. 

"  Dearest !  "  he  whispered,  as  he  caught  her  to  him  in 
the  porch.  But  she  would  not  give  him  his  kiss  until 
they  were  in  the  hallway. 

"  It's  .come ! "  she  said,  with  a  joyous  nod  towards  the 
letter  in  his  hand,  as  they  went  into  the  sitting-room, 
which  was  as  discreetly  empty  as  the  whole  house  seemed 
suddenly  to  have  become  in  the  hush  of  their  happiness. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  alternately  offering  and  refusing  it  to 
her,  as  he  held  her  away  to  make  certain  that  she  was  the 
same  Margaret  with  whom  he  had  parted  the  night  before 
for  the  last  time,  and  who  was  to  give  herself  to  him  in  a 
few  hours. 

She  sniffed  at  the  flowers  he  had  slipped  into  her 
hand  in  the  hallway ;  and,  to  make  sure  she  did  not  cry, 
laughed  at  the  smile  of  love  on  his  face,  which  often  op 
pressed  her  with  the  obligation  it  seemed  to  lay  on  her  to 
keep  it  always  there.  And  then  she  clapped  her  hands 
and  laughed  again  to  perceive  in  herself  a  kind  of  girlish 
pride  in  his  being  handsome  and  manly,  and  altogether 
very  fine  and  impressive  this  morning. 

It  was  true  that  he  was  a  striking  figure  as  he  stood 
holding  her  at  arm's-length  and  not  less  so  when  he  left 
her  side  and  went  over  to  the  mantel,  where  he  leaned 
his  head  upon  his  hand  and  watched  her  for  a  moment  in 
silence,  as  he  struck  at  his  riding-boots  with  the  quirt  he 
had  brought  in  with  him.  His  hair  was  a  bit  grey  where 
his  large  round  head  had  begun  to  grow  bald  on  each 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  17 

brow ;  but  this,  with  his  grizzling  eyebrows,  and  the 
strongly  marked  lines  about  his  mouth,  which  in  a  younger 
man  would  have  seemed  merely  the  outward  sign  of  reso 
lution,  were  the  only  tokens  by  which  one  would  have 
known  him  to  be  more  than  thirty-five.  His  hair,  like 
his  mustache,  which  was  the  only  adornment  of  his  face, 
was  worn  clipped  rather  short ;  and  this,  coupled  with 
his  rather  careful  habit  of  dress,  gave  him  a  certain  effect 
of  trimness  and  well-being  uncommon  in  the  West.  He 
had  the  habit  of  resting  his  weight  firmly  upon  the 
ground  ;  and  the  dignity  and  ease  of  his  bearing  were 
not  lost  in  the  most  impetuous  of  his  habitually  rapid 
movements.  His  eyes  had  a  tinge  of  blue  in  some  lights, 
but  it  was  the  indefinable  grey  in  them  which  gave  the 
look  of  power  and  firmness  to  his  face.  It  is  doubtful  if 
these  eyes  were  really  bluer  in  his  kindly  moments ;  but 
it  is  not  doubtful  that  they  seemed  so.  That  which  dis 
tinguished  his  look  and  his  manner,  however,  after  the 
force  which  no  one  could  fail  to  feel  in  him,  was  an  effect 
of  unconquerable  youthfulness  and  buoyancy.  His  eager, 
mildly  searching  glance,  his  manner  of  unceasing  alert 
ness  and  energy,  gave  one  the  sense  of  a  man  much 
alive. 

He  glanced  with  keen  liking  about  a  room  which  he  had 
known  for  a  long  time,  but  which,  somehow,  had  never 
been  as  interesting  a  room  as  it  was  this  morning.  He 
was  almost  in  a  mood  to  forgive  the  wall-paper,  which  in 
sulted  the  remnant  of  Eastern  taste  in  him ;  and  as  he 
turned  and,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  stared  into  the 
fire,  not  knowing  what  to  say  in  his  happiness,  it  gave 
him  a  warm  feeling  about  the  heart  to  see  what  a  gay  time 
the  combustible  pinon-wood  of  the  mountains  was  having 


18  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

of  it  in  the  little  grate.  There  was  even  a  certain  light- 
heartedness  about  the  what-not  in  the  corner,  on  which 
the  collection  of  mineral  specimens — part  of  the  religion 
of  Colorado  housekeeping — was  reflecting  the  Colorado 
sunshine  from  unexpected  facets  of  ore ;  while  the  iron 
pyrites  winked  in  the  sun  at  some  possible  tenderfoot 
mistaking  it  for  gold. 

Beatrice  Vertner's  taste  had  contrived  to  give  a  home 
like  expression  to  such  furniture  as  there  was ;  but  the 
room  was  rather  bare.  The  big  photograph  of  Veta  Pass, 
in  which  a  train  had  stopped  to  be  taken,  hung  in  frame- 
less,  fly-spotted  solitude  above  the  tennis-rackets  and  rid 
ing-crops  in  one  corner.  There  was  a  good  engraving 
above  the  fireplace,  framed  in  unplaned  scantling,  and 
two  clever  oil-paintings  by  some  of  Beatrice's  Eastern 
friends  brightened  one  corner  of  the  room,  which  was 
further  lighted  up  by  a  brilliant-hued  Navajo  blanket, 
hung  as  a,  portiere  at  one  of  the  doorways.  The  home 
made  rag  carpet,  in  its  modest  propriety  of  colouring, 
caused  the  Western  villainy  in  wall  paper  to  wear  a  self- 
conscious  smirk.  At  the  side  window  there  was  a  burst 
of  colour,  where  the  lower  sash  pretended,  not  very  seri 
ously,  to  be  stained  glass. 

"  Such  a  spick-span  conscience  as  I've  got  this  morn 
ing,  Margaret,"  he  said,  coming  over  to  her  and  taking  her 
hands  again,  while  he  looked  down  into  her  eyes,  which 
she  straightway  dropped.  "  There  isn't  an  unswept 
corner  nor  an  undusted  piece  of  furniture  in  it.  I've  had 
out  all  the  couches,  and  had  all  the  pictures  down,  and 
gone  in  for  a  general  house-cleaning.  The  boys  are  safe 
and  settled,  both  of  them,  and  in  seven  hours — 

"  Seven  and  a  half,"  she  corrected  smilingly,  with  the 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  19 

precision  which  seems  never  to  leave  a  woman  who  has 
once  taught  school. 

"  Half,  is  it  ?  To  be  sure ;  half-past  four.  But  every 
thing  must  be  whole  this  morning,  Margaret,  like  our 
happiness.  Have  you  noticed  how  every  one  feels  respon 
sible  and — interested  about  this  affair  ?  They  were  all  at 
the  windows  as  I  rode  up  the  street — or  rather  they  were 
behind  the  curtains — and  I  had  to  try  to  look  the  disin 
terested  morning  caller  on  my  way  to  pay  a  sort  of  duty 
call.  But  they  saw  through  me.  My  foolish  joy  leaks 
through  my  eyes,  I  suppose.  Margaret  dear,"  he  asked, 
taking  her  doubtful  and  feebly  reluctant  form  in  his  arms 
(for,  even  on  the  eve  of  her  wedding,  the  indomitable 
Puritan  in  her  must  have  its  shamefaced  way  with  her 
will),  "  tell  me,  does  it  distress  you  that  I  can't  conceal 
it?-  You  are  so  much  better  at  it.  Let  me  see  your  eyes. 
Come,  you  are  not  fair.  Look  up ! "  And  then,  as  she 
tremulously  took  his  glance  for  a  moment,  he  put  back 
his  big  head,  and  laughed  greatly.  "  I  see ;  you  were 
thinking  it :  that  it  is  unbecoming  that  they  should  be 
laughing  over  our  happiness — indecorous — um — unseemly. 
0  Margaret,  you  are  great  fun !  " 

"  Am  I  ?  "  she  asked,  with  a  shy  smile,  keeping  her 
eyes  on  the  button  she  was  twisting  on  his  coat. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  cried  through  his  laughter,  as  he  drew 
her  to  the  sofa ;  "  you  don't  know  what  you  miss  in  not 
being  able  to  enjoy  yourself."  He  caught  her  to  him, 
and  she  hid  her  head  on  his  broad  breast  for  happiness. 

And  with  his  arm  about  her  he  opened  the  letter. 
"  Isn't  it  fine,  dear,  to  know  that  Philip  is  settled  down 
and  done  for,  before  we  begin  with  each  other,  and  that 
we  need  not  fear  for  him  ?  Otherwise  I  should  have  felt 


20  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

as  if  I  were  running  away  from  him.  I  like  to  get  this 
letter  from  Jasper  just  at  this  time.  It's  only  a  form, 
but  it  makes  everything  quite  sure.  I'm  afraid  we  are 
too  happy,"  he  sighed,  as  he  glanced  over  the  first  lines  of 
the  letter ;  and  as  he  turned  the  page  he  looked  up  in  a 
daze,  and  could  not  believe  that  there  had  ever  been  such 
a  thing  as  happiness  in  the  world.  He  bit  his  lips,  not  to 
cry  out. 

Margaret  watched  him  in  silent  fright  as  he  read  on. 
A  pallor  deepened  over  his  face.  It  went,  and  he  appeared 
to  regain  himself.  But  the  thought,  whatever  it  was, 
seemed  suddenly  to  clutch  him  at  the  throat,  and  he 
buried  his  face  in  his  hands  with  a  groan. 

Margaret's  arm,  for  the  first  time  of  their  own  motion, 
stole  gently  about  him.  And  so  they  sat  for  a  long  time 
in  silence. 

Once  she  said  softly,  "  I'm  so  sorry,  dearest."  Ques 
tions,  she  saw,  could  not  help  him,  and  she  did  not  know 
how  to  say  her  sympathy.  She  understood  without  words 
that  Jasper  had  in  some  way  played  his  father  false,  and 
she  yearned  over  the  man  who  in  a  few  hours  was  to  be 
her  husband,  with  an  awed  sense  of  what  such  a  falsity 
must  mean  to  him. 

The  letter  shocked  her  when  she  read  it,  but  it  could 
not  sharpen  her  pain  for  him. 

Jasper  explained  that  he  could  not  hold  himself  bound 
by  the  understanding  under  which  his  father  apparently 
supposed  him  to  have  taken  a  half  share  in  the  profits  of 
the  range,  and  that  he  must  decline  to  surrender  to  Philip 
any  share  in  it.  He  "  stood  upon  the  articles  of  partner 
ship,  giving  him  the  rights  of  an  equal  partner,  for  a  term 
of  years."  The  rest  was  made  up  of  phrases.  He  would  be 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  21 

very  glad  to  offer  his  brother  employment  on  the  range ; 
would  be  "  most  happy  to  afford  him  every  "...  trusted 
that  "  such  an  arrangement  between  them  might  be  mu 
tually  "...  hoped  that  this  "  would  be  accepted  in  the 
spirit  in  which  "  .  .  .  ;  was  sure  that  his  father  must  feel 
that  "  business  is  always  business  " ;  and,  disclaiming  any 
motive  of  greed  or  animosity,  begged  him  to  believe  that 
he  remained  his  "  most  affectionate  son." 

Margaret  did  not  dare  look  at  the  stricken  man  beside 
her  when  she  had  finished  this. 

"  If  he  had  only  died  ! "  he  moaned. 

"  Oh,  I  know,  James ;  I  know  !  "  she  murmured,  with 
an  uncertain  caress. 

"  Do  you,  dear  ?  "  He  looked  up  dully.  Something 
vital  seemed  to  have  gone  out  of  him.  His  haggard  look 
appalled  her.  She  shrank  from  it  with  a  fluttering 
glance.  "  No,  no,"  he  said ;  "  you  don't  know.  You 
should  be  glad  you  can't.  You  must  have  cared  for  a 
child  in  sickness  and  in  health,  and  done  things  for  his 
sake,  and  been  through  all  sorts  of  weather  with  him,  and 
scolded  his  badness,  and  loved  his  lovableness,  to  know." 

"  Of  course,  of  course,"  whispered  Margaret,  mechan 
ically,  because  she  could  not  find  the  right  words,  if,  in 
truth,  there  were  any. 

"  You  can  guess,  dear,"  he  said,  "  and  it's  good  of  you  ; 
but  to  know  you  ought  to  have  watched  his  growth,  with 
its  touching  likeness  to  your  own  growth  ;  and  have  seen 
the  little  armful  of  flesh,  with  the  tiny,  beating  heart, 
that  you  were  once  afraid  you  would  stop  with  a  rough 
clasp,  grow  to  be  a  man,  with  a  man's  comfortable  power 
over  the  world  into  which  he  came  so  unknowingly — and 
with  a  man's  awful  capacity  for  right  and  wrong."  He 


22  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

sighed.  "  Yes,  yes,"  he  went  on  with  a  note  of  bitter 
ness  ;  "  you  must  have  done  what  you  could  to  help  him 
to  a  place  in  the  world," — his  voice  broke, — "  and  perhaps 
you  ought  really  to  have  been  both  father  and  mother  to 
him,"  he  added,  with  the  ghost  of  his  smile :  "  his  friend, 
as  you  stood  in  the  place  of  his  mother ;  his  comrade,  as 
you  were  in  fact  his  father,  to  know.  Thank  heaven,  you 
don't  know,  Margaret !  " 

The  patient  desolation  of  his  tone  touched  her  inex 
pressibly.  She  took  his  hand  in  both  of  hers,  studying  it 
absently  a  moment,  and  one  might  have  thought  she 
meant  to  raise  it  to  her  lips ;  but,  struggling  against  the 
tears  in  her  voice,  she  said,  "  Ingratitude,  though,  James 
— isn't  it  much  of  a  piece  wherever  you  find  it,  and — and 
suffer  from  it?  I  can  understand  that,  I  think."  She 
paused,  biting  her  lip  for  self-control.  "  Oh,  it  is  cow 
ardly  ! "  she  broke  out.  "  Doesn't  it  seem  so,  dear  ? 
Cowardly  and  brutal ! "  Her  arm  slipped  about  him 
again,  as  she  searched  for  these  blundering  words  of  help 
fulness.  She  would  have  given  the  world  to  reach  and 
soothe  the  pang  which  she  seemed  to  herself  to  be  merely 
moving  about  in  a  helpless  circle.  The  unyielding  tradi 
tion  in  which  she  had  been  nurtured,  and  which  possessed 
her  less  since  she  had  let  herself  love  him,  but  which  still 
was  mistress  of  her,  had  never  been  so  irksome. 

At  the  moment  she  longed  to  be  the  creature  of  some 
sunnier  land,  the  women  of  which  do  not  have  to  wonder 
how  they  shall  comfort  those  they  love,  who  have  a  nat 
ural  language  for  affection.  But  the  honesty  in  her 
would  not  suffer  her  to  express  more  than  she  could  feel 
instinctively.  "  Who — who  but  a  coward,"  she  went  on 
chokingly,  "  could  wrong  so  unanswerably  as  ingratitude 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  23 

wrongs — so  far  past  help,  so  deep  beyond  protest ;  so  deep, 
deep  down  that  the  mere  thought  of  lifting  a  voice  against 
it  is  a  misery,  a  nausea,  a  degradation  ! " 

He  leaped  up.  "  Yes,  yes,"  he  cried,  with  impatient 
energy ;  "  but  one  can  act,  must  act  when  the  thing's  past 
talk.  Where  did  I  leave  my  hat,  Margaret  ?  "  He  took 
her  by  both  shoulders,  with  a  sudden  impulse,  and  looked 
for  a  moment  into  her  eyes.  She  took  fright  at  his  set 
face,  in  which,  save  the  tenderness  for  her,  there  was 
scarce  anything  of  sanity. 

"  What — what  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  she  asked,  under 
her  breath. 

He  clenched  his  hands,  as  he  turned  from  her,  and 
caught  up  his  hat,  which  lay  on  the  sofa.  "  Oh,  I  don't 
know,  my  girl !  I  don't  know  !  My  worst,  I  suppose." 

He  was  flinging  himself  out  of  the  door.  "  James ! " 
she  murmured  reproachfully.  He  turned  and  kissed  her. 
"  In  an  hour,'*  he  whispered,  and  was  gone  before  she 
could  utter  one  of  all  the  pleadings  that  hung  upon  her 
lips.  She  tremblingly  watched  him  untie  his  horse. 
Every  movement  of  his  hands  was  charged  with  an  angry 
energy  that  terrified  her.  Her  heart  leaped  in  fear  at  the 
wrathful  twitch  with  which  he  loosed  the  knot  that  they 
had  been  laughing  at  together  twenty  minutes  back ;  and 
she  cowered  at  the  ugly  cut  under  which  the  pony  shrank, 
as  Deed  set  off  at  a  gallop. 

Was  this  the  good,  the  gentle  man  she  loved  ?  She 
put  her  hands  to  her  eyes  to  shield  them  from  the  mem 
ory  of  the  look  on  his  face,  as  he  parted  with  her.  It  was 
like  the  look  of  unreason — such  a  look  as  one  recalls  in 
explanation  of  a  terrible  event,  after  it  has  befallen. 


24  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 


II. 

IT  was  rather  more  than  an  hour  before  he  returned, 
and  Margaret  had  time  to  think  of  many  things.  She 
trembled  at  the  thought  of  what  he  might  be  doing  at  any 
moment  of  her  watching,  and  waiting,  and  poking  of  the 
fire.  She  recalled  all  that  she  knew  of  his  hot  and  reck 
less  temper ;  she  told  over  to  herself  all  that  she  had  ever 
heard  from  others  of  the  relentless  fixity  with  which  he 
carried  out  a  thing  on  which  he  was  resolved. 

She  knew  sadly  the  quality  of  his  temper,  of  course ; 
her  experiences  of  it  could  hardly  have  failed  to  be  numer 
ous  and  bitter,  in  the  time  which  had  elapsed  since  she  had 
known  him.  It  was  the  chief  flaw  in  his  character.  In 
accounting  for  it  to  herself,  she  said,  when  she  was  not 
fresh  from  suffering  from  some  manifestation  of  it,  that 
no  doubt  it  went  along  inevitably  with  his  generous  and 
impulsive  heart.  She  was  ignorant  about  such  things,  and 
about  men  in  general,  but  she  had  never  known  any  one 
so  entirely  good,  and  kind,  and  open-hearted,  and  she  told 
herself  it  was  not  for  her  to  measure  or  question  the  cor 
relative  fault  that  must  always  go  with  a  great  virtue  like 
that.  She  had  moments  of  grave  doubt  about  this,  of 
course,  and  her  doubt  had  been  a  minor  reason  among  the 
controlling  ones  which  had  caused  her  to  refuse  him  at 
first.  When  she  finally  discovered  that  she  loved  him,  it 
didn't  matter  ;  nothing  seemed  to  matter  then.  She  now 
thought  of  his  temper  as  one  of  the  things  she  would  set 
herself  to  modify — or,  rather,  to  help  him  about — when 
they  were  married.  What  was  marriage  for,  if  not  for 
some  such  mutual  strengthening  and  improvement  ? 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  25 

Something  Vertner  had  told  her  when  she  first  came, 
and  at  which  she  had  laughed  at  the  time,  recurred  to  her. 
It  still  made  her  smile,  but  in  a  frightened  way.  Vertner 
had  heard  it  in  Leadville.  It  was  apropos  of  the  grim 
strength  of  purpose  which  every  one  felt  in  Deed.  Some 
one  had  come  to  a  young  lawyer  there,  to  offer  him  a  case 
in  which  Deed  was  engaged  on  the  other  side,  and  had 
been  asked  to  "  come  off  !  "  "  Ain't  you  got  more  sense," 
inquired  the  practitioner,  expressively,  "  than  to  take  half 
a  day  out  of  a  ten-dollar-a-day  job  to  come  and  set  me  on 
to  Deed  in  a  case  where  he's  got  the  ghost  of  a  show  ? 
Never  saw  him  grip  his  fist,  like  that,  in  a  court  of  law, 
did  you  ?  Thought  not.  Must  is  must  about  that  time, 
young  man.  There  ain't  no  two  ways  to  a  burro's  kick. 
I've  been  there.  In  fact,  I  was  there  day  before  yesterday. 
Beaten  ?  No,  sir  ;  I  wasn't  beaten.  I  was  cyclonized.  I 
was  taken  up  by  the  toes  of  my  boots,  and  swung  round 
and  round  with  one  of  the  prettiest  rotary  motions  you 
ever  saw,  and  banged  against  the  top  of  Uncompaghre 
Peak,  out  there.  No  one  but  myself  would  have  thought 
it  worth  while  to  pick  up  what  was  left  of  me,  I  suppose. 
But  I  did  it ;  and  I  picked  up  too  much  sense  at  the  same 
time  to  try  it  again.  Why,  that  man's  got  more  knowl 
edge  of  the  law,  and  more  raw  grit,  and  hang  on,  and  stick 
to'n — "  he  questioned  the  air  with  uplifted  arm  for  a  com 
parison — "  well,"  he  ended  hopelessly.  "  I'll  tell  you  what 
it  is,"  he  went  on,  with  renewed  grip  of  language  ;  "  for 
them  that  likes  monkeying  with  the  buzz-saw,  there  ain't 
nothing  like  it,  short  of  breaking  a  faro-bank.  It's  straw 
berries  and  cream  to  that  sort.  But  to  peaceably  disposed 
citizens  like  you  and  me,  Charlie,  there  ain't  nothing  at 
all,  anywhere,  like  staying  pleasantly  and  sociably  to  home, 


26  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

and  letting  the  saw  hum  its  merry  little  way  through  the 
other  fellow's  fingers." 

From  time  to  time  Margaret  would  go  to  the  window, 
and  look  wistfully  down  the  road.  The  expression  on  her 
round,  shrewd,  suggestive,  wise  little  face  at  these  times 
would  have  helped  an  observer  to  understand  the  look 
which  made  her  seem  older  than  her  twenty-nine  years ; 
it  was  the  authoritative  look  of  experience.  The  look  of 
over-experience  that  sometimes  fixes  itself,  to  the  sadness 
of  the  beholder,  on  the  face  of  a  woman  who  has  been 
down  into  the  fight  for  bread  with  men,  had  passed  by 
Margaret's  inextinguishable  womanliness ;  but  she.  had 
not  led  an  easy  life ;  and  one  saw  it  in  her  face — a  face 
proportioned  with  a  harmony  that  strangely  failed  to  make 
it  beautiful. 

Her  eyes,  which  were  small  and  bright,  were  deeply  set 
under  a  high  and  well-modelled  brow,  from  which  the  hair 
was  brushed  straight  back  in  a  way  that  must  have  been 
unbecoming  to  another  type  of  face,  but  which  was  ad 
mirably  suited  to  her  own.  In  falling  over  her  shapely 
little  ears,  the  silky  brown  hair  waved  in  a  fashion  pleas 
ant  to  see.  Her  mouth,  which  was  small  and  daintily 
made,  wore  an  expression  of  unusual  firmness. 

In  conversation  she  would  fix  her  animated  hazel  eyes 
in  absorbed  attention  on  the  face  of  the  person  with  whom 
she  spoke,  and  when  the  talk  was  of  serious  things,  a  deep, 
far-away  look  would  suddenly  possess  these  eyes.  She  had 
an  extraordinarily  sweet  smile,  and  there  was  a  gentle  and 
kindly  soberness  in  her  expression.  She  was  well  and 
compactly  made,  yet  her  effect  was  unimposing.  She 
seemed  short  and  slight.  She  had  a  well-kept  little  effect 
in  her  dress  and  the  appointments  of  her  person  ;  but  no 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  27 

one  would  have  accused  Margaret  of  knowing  anything 
about  dress.  She  was  rather  discreetly  clothed  than  dressed 
in  the  sense  of  adornment.  She  wore  white  cuffs  at  her 
wrists  and  a  narrow  collar  at  her  throat,  fastened  by  a 
brooch  of  gold  wrought  in  an  old-fashioned  pattern. 

Margaret  was  not  smiling  when  Beatrice  came  in, 
some  time  after  Deed  had  gone,  and  found  her  with  her 
head  pressed  against  the  pane.  She  turned  her  tearful 
face  away  as  Beatrice  drew  her  to  her. 

Mrs.  Vertner,  one  saw,  had  been  quite  recently  a 
pretty  woman,  and  she  was  still  young — a  year  or  two 
younger  than  Margaret.  The  brilliant  expression  which 
had  distinguished  her  among  all  her  acquaintance  in  her 
young  girl  days  in  Newton  (the  Boston  Newton),  where 
she  was  still  remembered  as  a  clever  girl  who  had  made 
an  inexplicable  marriage,  was  overlaid,  for  the  most  part, 
by  a  look  of  anxiety  and  harassment,  due  to  the  con 
ditions  of  her  life.  She  made  her  housekeeping  as  little 
a  sordid,  crude,  and  ugly  business  as  she  could,  and  took 
its  difficulties  light-heartedly;  but  housekeeping  in  a 
Western  town  that  has  still  to  "  get  its  growth  "  is  at  best 
a  soul-wearing  affair.  Just  now  she  suffered  under  the 
rule  of  a  Swedish  maid-servant  who  knew  no  English, 
and  whose  knowledge  of  cooking  was  limited  to  a  fine 
skill  in  broiling  steak  insupportably,  and  a  vain  address 
in  the  brewing  of  undrinkable  coffee. 

"  Crying,  little  one  ? "  she  asked  affectionately. 
"  Won't  you  do  something  a  wee  bit  like  some  one  else, 
dear,  one  of  these  days,  and  let  me  be  by  to  see  it? 
That's  a  good  girl."  She  kissed  her,  with  a  laugh. 
"  But  stay  odd  all  the  rest  of  the  time,  Margaret.  I 
shouldn't  like  you  if  you  weren't  odd,  you  know — not 


28  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

even  if  you  were  ever  so  little  less  odd.  If  I  want  you  to 
be  conventional,  it  is  only  for  a  moment,  to  see  how  it 
would  seem.  Come !  Other  brides  smile.  Try  one 
smile  ! "  she  pleaded.  And  at  Margaret's  helpless  amuse 
ment,  she  snatched  her  from  the  window,  and,  humming 
a  vague  air,  which  denned  itself  in  a  moment  as  one  of 
the  Waldteufel  waltzes,  she  beat  time  for  a  second,  laugh 
ing  in  Margaret's  bewildered,  tear-stained  face,  and 
caught  her  away  into  a  romping  dance. 

"  There  ! "  she  cried,  as  she  sank  upon  the  sofa,  breath 
less  with  laughing  and  dancing.  "  I've  shaken  you  into 
sorts,  I  hope,  and  you're  ready  for  the  ceremony — or  will 
be,  if  you'll  ever  get  yourself  dressed.  Not  that  I  call  it 
dressed,  to  wear  that  grey — oh,  I  don't  mean  that,  Maggie 
dear,"  she  exclaimed  at  a  pained  look  on  Margaret's  face. 
She  crushed  Margaret  to  her  in  a  devouring  embrace. 
"  Or,  rather,  I  do,"  she  added  honestly ;  "  but  I  didn't 
mean  to  say  it.  No  ;  you'd  better  wear  it,"  she  went  on, 
at  some  sign  of  hesitation  from  Margaret.  "  It  will  go 
beautifully  with  all  the  rest  of  it.  Margaret  Der- 
wenter,"  she  cried,  with  an  affectation  of  seriousness, 
"  shall  I  tell  you  something  ?  You  will  never  be  mar 
ried."  She  retired  for  the  effect,  but  fell  upon  her  with 
all  the  armoury  of  woman's  peace-making  at  Margaret's 
start.  "  Literal ! "  she  cried.  "  Will  you  never  take 
things  less  hard  ?  As  if  I  meant  it !  What  I  did  mean 
sounds  foolish  after  you've  taken  it  like  that.  But  I  may 
as  well  say  it.  I  don't  believe  the  marriage  ceremony  is 
going  to  marry  you  as  it  does  other  women,  Margaret; 
and  you  needn't  tell  me  it  is.  If  you  are  ever  married,  it 
will  be  by  yourself ;  yes,  I  mean  it — by  a  kind  of  slow 
process  of  consent  to  the  affair.  Of  course  you  will  have 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  29 

a  proper  respect  for  the  ceremony,  and  you  will  think  it 
has  married  you.  But  women  like  you,  Maggie, — not 
that  there  are  any, — are  not  married  in  that  way.  Now, 
I  was  married  when  I  left  the  church,  and  everybody 
knew  it." 

Margaret  laughed,  not  on  compulsion  this  time,  and, 
catching  her  arm  about  Beatrice's  waist,  drew  her  to  the 
window  to  look  down  the  road  with  her  for  Deed's 
coming. 

Almost  any  part  of  Margaret's  history,  before  the  time 
when  she  began  to  teach,  and,  by  a  curious  arrangement 
of  her  own,  to  see  the  world,  must  wrong,  or  at  least  mis 
speak,  in  the  telling  the  gentle  and  sweet-natured  woman 
she  had  become. 

From  the  first  she  had  ideas  ;  and  it  would  be  hard  to 
say  what  one  must  call  the  ambition  which  gave  purpose 
and  meaning  to  her  young  days.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  her  grandmother's  farm-house  on  a  bleak  New  England 
hill,  the  pursuit  of  what  she  called  culture  represented  to 
Margaret  during  these  days  an  inspiration,  an  intellectual 
stimulus,  and  a  rule  of  life.  It  would  be  a  quarrelsome 
person  who  would  not  suffer  any  one  to  get  what  fun  he 
might  out  of  the  idea  of  culture  for  culture's  angular 
dear  sake  ;  and  as  an  alternative  to  the  apples  and  cider, 
the  mite-societies,  the  "  socials,"  and  the  lectures  which 
in  winter  stand  for  mental  diversion  in  the  back  country 
of  New  England,  it  has  advantages. 

But  if  some  one  said  that  the  theory  of  life  which  it 
implies  lacks  ease,  atmosphere,  curves,  lacks  even,  to  say 
the  worst  of  it  at  once,  the  sense  of  humour,  only  one  who 
had  a  great  many  such  New  England  winters  in  him 
ought  to  say  a  word. 


30  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

Margaret,  in  her  pursuit  of  this  mystic  culture,  con 
ceived  education  to  be,  until  her  education  was  done,  an 
affair  possessing  length,  breadth,  and  thickness.  It  is  to 
be  feared  that  she  even  "  improved "  her  opportunities. 
They  were  not  many,  poor  girl,  until  she  left  the  New 
Hampshire  village  for  her  first  stay  in  New  York,  where 
she  studied  at  a  school  in  which  she  spent  a  year  learning 
that  she  was  the  only  pupil  who  regarded  its  advantages 
as  precious  privileges.  Then  she  left  it  for  Vassar,  which 
was,  at  least,  not  touched  with  sham.  She  found  here 
other  girls  with  her  thought  about  education;  and  she 
went  about  the  erection  of  her  structure  of  intelligence 
with  an  energy  which  presently  sent  her  home  to  her  grand 
mother  ill.  The  structure  remained  her  point  after  her 
return,  however ;  and  the  reader  who  knows  anything  of 
this  habit  of  thought  should  not  need  to  be  told  that  she 
looked  upon  it,  not  as  a  dwelling  that  she  should  one  day 
inhabit,  much  less  as  a  temple  which  should  one  day 
inhabit  her,  but  as  a  shrine  the  graceful  proportions  of 
which  it  was  the  final  privilege  to  set  forever  within  one's 
blessed  sight.  At  nineteen  Margaret  was  more  in  the 
way  to  becoming  that  distressing  product  of  our  felicitous 
new  ways  of  thinking  about  women  and  about  education 
— the  female  prig — than  a  friendly  biographer  would  like 
to  record. 

Her  escape  from  such  a  fate  was  due  to  circumstances 
outside  her  control.  In  the  midst  of  one  of  the  summer 
vacations  she  took  up  a  copy  of  the  "  Springfield  Eepub- 
lican,"  to  learn  that  the  little  competence  left  her  by  her 
father  had  been  embezzled,  with  more  important  trust 
funds,  by  an  unscrupulous  executor.  Soon  after,  her 
grandmother  died.  Every  Sunday  morning,  from  the 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  31 

time  when  Margaret  had  come  to  her  as  a  child,  she  had 
lain  in  bed,  this  estimable  lady,  thinking  how  she  would 
change  on  Monday  in  Margaret's  favour  the  will  which 
bequeathed  all  she  had  to  a  charity.  On  Sunday  morn 
ing  a  late  breakfast  gave  time  for  reflection  on  such  sub 
jects  ;  but  on  Monday  there  was  never  any  time  at  all. 
And  on  one  of  the  Mondays  which  was  to  have  wit 
nessed  the  fulfilment  of  her  resolve,  she  died  in  Margaret's 
arms. 

The  double  catastrophe  had  many  lessons  for  Margaret. 
She  sorrowed  for  her  grandmother  bitterly  out  of  the  sim 
ple  and  loving  heart  which  no  system  of  cultivation  could 
have  educated  out  of  her ;  and  she  never  thought  of  blam 
ing  the  neglect  which  had  left  her  with  the  problem  of 
earning  her  living  close  upon  her.  The  money  lost 
through  the  executor's  rascality  troubled  her  solely  as  an 
educated  girl — a  girl  with  duties,  with  responsibilities  to 
her  self-development.  It  would  be  putting  it  too  crudely 
to  say  that  she  grieved  for  the  loss  of  the  money  because 
one  might  have  bought  such  a  lot  of  culture  with  it : 
travel,  that  is,  and  the  leisure  for  study,  and  the  sight  of 
good  pictures,  and  the  knowledge  of  all  the  "  cultivated  " 
things.  But  it  is  only  the  expression  that  is  at  fault :  her 
idea  hovered  very  near  this  thought.  As  she  could  not 
have  the  thing  in  one  shape,  she  determined  to  buy  it  for 
herself  in  another. 

It  was  necessary  that  she  should  provide  for  herself, 
and  she  conceived  the  enterprising  notion  of  making  this 
necessity  serve  her  purpose.  She  "  taught " ;  but  she  gave 
the  heavy-hearted  word  a  meaning  of  her  own  by  procur 
ing,  through  a  friend  of  her  father  in  Boston  (after  a  year 
spent  in  school-teaching),  a  position  as  travelling  governess 


32  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

with  a  family  which  put  several  of  her  favourite  novels  to 
shame  by  treating  her  as  one  of  the  species. 

She  made  the  tour  of  Europe  with  these  people,  with 
what  she  called,  in  her  letters  to  one  of  her  college  friends, 
"  most  satisfying  results."  She  did  not  mean  to  the  busi 
ness  man's  children  whom  she  was  teaching,  but  to  what 
she  might  have  called  her  own  "  mental  progress."  The 
business  man,  when  he  called  the  results  "  satisfactory," 
meant  something  separated  by  the  distance  between  any 
two  of  the  planets  from  the  idea  contained  in  Margaret's 
word ;  but  his  word  was  at  least  as  much  reward  as  she 
had  expected,  outside  her  salary,  for  her  faithful  efforts 
to  decant  some  of  her  knowledge  into  the  minds  of  the 
business  man's  children. 

When  she  was  back  in  America  again,  she  recklessly 
sat  down  and  waited  for  another  engagement  looking  to 
the  same  ends.  This  time  she  wanted  to  go  to  Japan, 
and  she  kept  the  advertisement  in  which  her  wishes  were 
succinctly  stated  in  the  "  Nation  "  and  in  the  "  Tribune  " 
until  a  family  discovered  itself  intending  towards  Japan, 
and  desiring  a  governess  of  Margaret's  capacity,  tempera 
ment,  and  terms. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  was  a  woman  of  energy,  of  in 
dependence,  and  of  original  ideas ;  but  so  much  lies  on  the 
surface.  To  make  it  at  all  clear  how  she  contrived  to  rec 
oncile  these  rather  aggressive  qualities  to  the  softest  and 
gentlest  womanhood  there  need  be,  one  must  have  known 
her.  To  be  sweetly  firm ;  to  be  gifted  with  the  kind  of 
lucidity  that  does  not  roil  one's  own  commonplace  mud 
dle  of  a  mind  by  its  mere  existence ;  to  know,  and  not  to 
know  you  know ;  to  hold  immoderate  opinions  in  a  mod 
erate  way ;  to  be  transfigured  by  energy,  and  yet  consent 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  33 

to  the  propriety  of  your  neighbour  lying  on  his  sofa ;  to 
perceive  that  the  boundaries  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
or  even — though  this  is  asking  a  good  deal — the  confines 
of  the  British  Isles,  do  not  limit  the  imaginable,  not  to 
say  ladylike,  regions  of  our  globe  :  in  a  word,  to  be  toler 
ant — these  are  great  matters.  It  can  hardly  discredit 
Margaret  with  any  reasonable  soul  to  own  that  she  failed, 
for  the  most  part,  to  realize  all  these  excellences;  but 
they  had  become  the  tormenting  measure  of  her  ideal 
some  time  before  she  met  Deed,  on  a  visit  to  Beatrice 
Vertner  (the  one  friend  she  had  made  at  her  New  York 
school)  at  her  home  in  Colorado. 

It  was  mainly  the  travel  which  she  had  sought  as 
gratifying  her  aspirations  towards  culture  which  disabused 
her  of  her  young  feeling  about  that  ignis  fatuns  ;  the 
sight  of  the  various,  the  populous,  the  instructive  world 
furnished  her  with  an  altogether  new  point  of  view,  from 
which  she  grew  to  pity  the  provincial  Diana  who  had  set 
out  with  such  a  fine  courage  to  hunt  down  culture  with 
her  little  bow  and  arrow.  And  yet  the  Diana  remained  ; 
and  the  Margaret  of  ten  years  after  the  Vassar  days  was 
at  least  as  remarkable  for  her  likeness,  in  remote,  illusive 
ways,  to  the  Margaret  who  had  one  and  the  same  con 
science  for  the  Temple  of  Culture,  and  for  the  Temple  of 
Pure  Right,  as  she  was  remarkable  for  her  exquisite,  her 
admirable,  and  her  surprising  difference. 

The  new  notions  of  life  begotten  of  going  about  and 
seeing  things  had  led  the  way ;  but  no  one  who  knew  her 
well  could  have  been  at  a  loss  to  perceive  the  moulding 
force  which  had  done  the  real  work  of  change.  It  was 
her  womanliness  coming  in  upon  her,  at  the  same  time, 
with  its  incomparable  enrichment,  which  had  taught  her 


34:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

old  vagaries  the  way  to  the  graces  of  the  new  Margaret ; 
it  was  what  one  might  almost  have  called  her  natural  gift 
for  womanliness  which  finally  chastened  her  edges,  and 
which,  in  shaping  her  young  strenuousness  to  softer  lines, 
lost  for  it  none  of  the  validity  and  justness  and  simple 
strength  which  had  gone  with  her  maidenly  ways  of 
thinking. 

And  yet  it  is  certain  that  one  is  not  reared  in  New 
Hampshire  for  nothing ;  that  one  does  not  spend  four 
years  at  Vassar  without  bearing  the  Vassar  mark ;  above 
all,  it  is  clear  that  no  one  can  teach  for  ten  years — it  may 
be  that  no  one  can  teach  for  an  hour — and  live  to  hide 
the  fact. 

It  was  Beatrice  who  first  caught  sight  of  the  familiar 
figures  of  the  pony  and  his  rider,  coming  up  the  road  at 
a  gallop,  pursued  by  a  swirl  of  dust.  She  could  not  be 
persuaded  that  she  did  not  hear  the  baby  crying,  and  de 
scended  upon  the  sound  before  Deed  could  reach  the 
porch. 

Margaret  would  rather  he  had  not  tried  to  find  a  smile 
for  her.  He  looked  a  year  older  than  when  he  had  left 
her  side.  They  stood  for  a  moment,  when  she  opened  the 
door  to  him,  looking  into  each  other's  eyes.  Then  she 
cast  her  arms  about  him,  and  drew  him  to  her  with  an 
impulse  of  protection, — the  kind  of  refuge  against  the 
vexations  of  the  world  that  a  woman  offers  to  the  man 
who  is  dear  to  her,  as  if  he  were  the  sole  sufferer  from 
them  on  the  planet, — and  whispered  some  words  in  his 
ear. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,"  she  said  simply,  as  she  took  his  arm, 
and  led  him  into  the  room,  where  she  had  made  up  a 
brighter  fire  against  his  return. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  35 

He  sat  heavily  on  the  sofa,  and  stared  at  the  blazing 
piflon  sticks  with  the  look  of  a  man  whose  fight  is  done. 

He  looked  away  from  her.  "  We  musn't  talk  of  it," 
he  said,  after  a  moment.  "  It's  no  stuff  to  make  wed 
ding-days  of.  I  don't  know,"  he  went  on,  biting  his  lip, 
"  how  I  am  going  to  get  my  forgiveness  that  this  should 
have  happened  as  it  has." 

She  came  and  stood  by  his  side.  "  Do  you  begrudge 
my  sharing  your  trouble,  James  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Would 
you  rather  have  borne  it  alone  ?  I  thought  that  was  what 
it  meant  to  be — " 

"  What,  dear  ? "  he  asked  tenderly.  He  drew  her 
down  to  him,  and  put  his  arm  about  her.  She  sank  on 
the  floor  beside  him. 

"A  wife,"  she  said,  blushing  faintly,  and  looking 
down. 

Their  romance  was  not  less  dear  to  them  than  if  they 
had  been  younger :  it  was  more  sober,  but  not  less  valiant. 

"  Um,"  commented  Deed,  with  a  wan  smile,  patting 
her  hand  affectionately.  She  sat  for  a  moment  in  a  rev 
erie  that  took  no  account  of  their  trouble,  and  was  almost 
happy.  But  catching  sight  of  his  tense  and  stricken  face, 
"  Something  has  happened,"  she  said  tremulously. 

"  Yes ;  the  law  can't  help  me,"  he  answered  wearily. 
"  If  there  were  nothing  else,  I  must  have  let  him  go  with 
his  plunder,  and  have  found  heart  somehow  to  tell  Philip 
that  I  had  let  myself  be  done  out  of  his  future,  with  a 
fool's  trust." 

"Nothing  but  the  law?  Then  there  is  something 
else  ?  There  is  a  remedy  ?  " 

He  did  not  respond  to  the  joy  in  her  tone.  "  Yes,"  he 
answered  gravely. 


I 

36  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

She  started  back,  and  rose  from  his  side,  all  her  fears 
alive  in  her  face. 

"James!"  she  cried  incriminatingly.  He  sat  silent, 
with  his  head  in  his  hands.  She  regarded  him  for  a  mo 
ment  in  anxious  perplexity.  Then  she  reached  forth  her 
hand,  and  laid  it  softly  on  his  shoulder.  "  You — you  are 
quite  sure  you  are  doing  right  ?  "  she  asked  gently. 

He  withdrew  himself.  "  Margaret !  "  he  cried  re 
proachfully.  "  How  could  I  do  a  wrong  to  him  ?  " 

"You  can  do  a  wrong  to  yourself.  You  can  let  a 
longing  to  right  yourself  carry  you  too  far,"  she  said 
bravely. 

"Don't  talk  in  that  way,  Margaret.  There  was  but 
one  right  and  one  wrong  in  the  world.  I  had  to  have  that 
right.  "What  I  have  done  is  just." 

"  Oh,  I  hope  so ! "  she  cried. 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment.  He  was  thinking  of 
many  things.  Suddenly  he  turned  his  eyes  to  hers,  and 
regarded  her  piercingly.  He  took  her  hands  in  an  eager 
pressure.  "  What  would  you  do  for  me  ? "  he  asked  at 
last  abruptly. 

"  My  dear  James,  I — "  began  Margaret,  startled. 

"  Would  you  give  up  all  that  I  have  meant  to  make 
yours  for — for  me  ?  " 

His  intense  gaze  was  unbearable.  She  turned  away. 
"  You  know  I  would,"  she  murmured. 

"Don't  think  that  because  I  am  giving  I  have  the 
right  to  take  away.  It's  not  so." 

"  Eights,  dear ?  Must  we  talk  of  them?  Don't  you 
think—" 

"Well?"  he  asked,  trying  to  be  gentle;  but  his  rest 
less  anxiety  got  into  his  voice. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  3Y 

"  That  they  stop,  I  was  going  to  say,  where  love  be 
gins.  But,  James,  you  seem  so  far  off — so  strange."  She 
laid  a  hand  doubtfully  upon  him,  and  looked  into  his  face 
with  a  questioning  glance.  "  Would  it  reach  you,  if  I 
said  a  thing  like  that  ?  "  she  asked.  Her  smile  was  piti 
ful.  "  0  my  dearest,  of  course  I  don't  care.  How  should 
I  ?  Did  I  ever  care  ?  And  now,  if  it  would  make  you 
happy— 

"  Must  it  make  me  happy  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Would  it  be  worth  while  to  you  if  it  did  not  ?  " 

"  Ah,  well ! "  he  exclaimed  inconclusively,  and  for 
some  minutes  they  did  not  speak.  Margaret  watched  his 
absorbed  face  and  knitted  brows  with  a  thousand  rising 
doubts. 

He  may  have  seen  the  pained  look  of  inquiry  on  her 
face,  for  he  took  her  clasped  hands  and  stroked  her  hair 
thoughtfully.  W'ith  her  elbow  on  the  sofa,  and  her  head 
in  her  upturned  hand,  she  coiled  herself  on  the  floor,  and 
regarded  the  crackling  fire  for  a  long  time  in  wistful 
silence. 

She  was  glad  when  he  spoke,  though  all  her  fears  cried 
out  against  what  he  might  say.  As  he  bent  over  her, 
speaking  in  a  low  voice,  she  kept  her  eyes  on  the  fire. 
"  Tell  me  again  it  would  not  pain  you  to  lose  it  all,  Mar 
garet.  It  is  not  merely  money.  It  has  many  sides  and 
meanings.  It  is  all  worldly  comfort,  advantage,  leisure, 
of  course ;  but,  besides,  it  is  freedom — freedom  to  do  the 
things  you  have  wished  to  do,  Margaret ;  the  things  you 
have  not  been  able  to  do.  It's  not  fair  to  ask  you  until 
you  have  tested  it.  You  don't  know  how  much  you  would 
be  giving  up." 

She  smiled.     "  I  know  how  much  I  shall  be  gaining  if 


38  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

— if  it  can  serve  you,"  she  said  softly,  her  head  turned 
from  him. 

He  observed  her  with  keen,  grave  eyes,  which,  as  he 
looked,  filled  with  tenderness.  He  rose  and  took  her  in 
his  arms. 

"  Is  this  my  reserved  Margaret  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Is  this 
the  quiet  little  woman  who,  a  few  months  since,  would 
scarcely  own  she  loved  me,  and  only  the  other  day  was 
protesting  that  her  training  had  not  taught  her  the  lan 
guage  of  affection  ?  " 

She  hid  her  face,  "  What  is  it  that  you  wish  to  do, 
James?"  she  asked  anxiously,  when  she  could  raise  .it 
again. 

He  released  her  without  answering.  After  a  moment 
he  took  a  turn  up  and  down  the  room. 

"  You  won't  believe  it ! "  he  said  suddenly.  He  went 
back,  and  flung  himself  upon  the  sofa,  with  a  half  groan. 
The  fire  bad  blazed  up,  and  in  its  play  upon  his  face 
Margaret  read  the  torture  that  was  going  on  in  him.  She 
was  beside  him  again  in  a  moment.  "  Margaret,"  he  said, 
as  he  caught  her  hand  once  more,  "  do  you  remember  the 
story  of  Samson  ?  " 

"  Surely,"  she  answered  in  wonder.     "  Why  ?  " 

"His  locks  were  traitorously  shaven.  His  strength, 
which  was  all  his  riches,  was  basely  taken  from  him  by 
one  he  trusted.  Then  his  enemies  believed  they  had  con 
quered  him,  for  his  power  was  gone,  and  they  had  put  out 
his  two  eyes.  But  in  Gaza — do  you  remember,  dear  ? — 
when  they  were  gathered  to  see.  his  shame,  he  put  forth 
one  last,  mighty  effort,  and  pulled  down  the  temple  over 
their  heads  and  his.  The  story  has  always  had  a  noble 
ring  to  me,  I  don't  know  why.  To-day  it  comes  back 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  39 

with  special  meaning.  Would  you  mind  reading  it  over 
to  me,  dear?" 

Margaret  gazed  at  him  in  trouble  and  uncertainty; 
but  she  went  for  the  Bible  which  was  her  single  inherit 
ance  from  her  mother.  At  home  she  always  kept  it  on 
the  table  near  her  bed.  Just  now  it  was  in  the  trunk, 
up-stairs.  When  she  had  found  it,  she  brought  the  vol 
ume  to  him,  and,  kneeling  down  with  her  arm  on  his 
knee  and  her  face  to  the  blaze,  where  she  could  see  him 
by  turning  her  head,  opened  quickly  to  the  place. 

" '  But  the  Philistines  took  him,  and  put  out  his 
eyes,' "  she  began,  "  '  and  brought  him  down  to  Gaza,  and 
bound  him  with  fetters  of  brass — ' " 

"  No ;  a  little  further  on,  please,"  said  he,  keeping  his 
eyes  closed. 

" '  And  it  came  to  pass,'  "  she  began  again,  towards  the 
the  end  of  the  chapter,  " '  when  their  hearts  were  merry, 
that  they  said,  Call  for  Samson,  that  he  may.'  make  us 
sport.  And  they  called  for  Samson  out  of  the  prison 
house ;  and  he  made  them  sport ;  and  they  set  him  be 
tween  the  pillars. 

" '  And  Samson  said  unto  the  lad  that  held  him  by  the 
hand,  Suffer  me  that  I  may  feel  the  pillars  whereupon  the 
house  standeth,  that  I  may  lean  upon  them.  .  .  . 

'"And  Samson  called  unto  the  Lord,  and  said,  0 
Lord  God,  remember  me,  I  pray  thee,  and  strengthen  me, 
I  pray  thee,  only  this  once,  0  God,  that  I  may  be  at  once 
avenged  of  the  Philistines  for  my  two  eyes.' " 

Deed  rose  abruptly,  and  paced  the  floor.  Margaret  read 
on,  fearful  of  she  knew  not  what. 

" '  And  Samson  took  hold  of  the  two  middle  pillars 
upon  which  the  house  stood,  and  on  which  it  was  borne 


40  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

up,  of  the  one  with  his  right  hand,  and  of  the  other  with 
his  left. 

"  '  And  Samson  said,  Let  me  die  with  the  Philistines. 
And  he  bowed  himself  with  all  his  might ;  and  the  house 
fell  upon  the  lords,  and  upon  all  the  people  that  were 
therein.' " 

Margaret  dropped  the  book,  and  looked  at  Deed.  He 
was  standing  quite  still,  listening  in  absorption. 

"  Was  it  not  great  ?  Was  it  not  well  done,  Mar 
garet  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said,  with  a  touch  of  preciseness 
which,  without  her  will,  would  often  make  its  way  into 
her  tone  when  matters  of  propriety  or  morality  were  in 
question.  She  reflected  a  moment.  "  Was  it  right  to  kill 
so  many  for  revenge  only  ?  " 

"  It  was  just.  His  loss  was  not  a  common  one.  It  was 
his  two  eyes." 

"  But  barbarous  justice,  don't  you  think  so,  dear  ?  It 
would  be  better  to  suffer  under  the  sense  of  the  worst 
wrong." 

"  No,  no,"  said  he,  earnestly,  almost  eagerly  ;  "  to  me 
it  seems  nobly  done.  He  did  not  try  to  save  himself.  He 
perished  of  his  own  will  in  the  general  ruin." 

Margaret  had  long  been  watching  him  anxiously; 
but  now,  terrified  beyond  control,  she  burst  forth,  "  0 
James,  what  has  Samson's  story  to  do  with  you  or 
me?" 

"  Everything !  Everything ! "  he  cried.  "  Has  not  Jas 
per  taken  my  strength  in  teaching  me  to  know  him  ?  Has 
he  not  taken  my  eyes  in  robbing  me  of  himself,  and  of 
Philip's  future,  at  a  stroke  ?  " 

He  paced  the  floor  impatiently.     She  put  forth  her 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  41 

hand  with  an  instinctive  gesture  of  deprecation.  His  hag 
gard  face,  with  its  look  of  determination,  awed  her. 
When  she  tried  to  cry  out  her  voice  failed  her. 

"Margaret,"  he  cried,  pausing  suddenly  in  his  walk 
at  some  look  in  her  face,  "  you  would  not  have  me  bear 
it!" 

"  0  James,"  she  answered,  "  it  is  hard,  very  hard,  I 
know ;  but  yes,  I  would  bear  it.  What  else  is  there  for 
it?" 

"  What  else  ?  "  he  cried.  "  All  else  !  Why,  Margaret, 
can  you  ask  ?  Do  you  think  I  could  live,  and  not  strike 
back  ?  Am  I  so  weak  a  thing  ?  Am  I  cheated  of  all  my 
power,  even  in  your  eyes  ?  Why,  dearest — "  he  drew  her 
to  him,  as  she  rose,  with  a  tremulous  motion,  and  surveyed 
her  face — "  why,  dearest,"  he  repeated,  "  I  have  still  Sam 
son's  power." 

"  Still  Samson's  power  ? "  She  repeated  the  words 
helplessly. 

"  The  power  to  make  him  suffer  with  me,"  he  said 
sternly.  "  The  power  to  pull  down  the  temple  over  his 
head." 

"And  yours?" 

"  Surely.  Did  you  think  I  could  not  find  Samson's 
courage  for  Samson's  remedy  ?  " 

"  But  you  will  not !     Surely  you  will  not ! " 

"  I  have,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  away. 

Margaret  bowed  her  head.  "  Oh,"  she  cried,  "  you 
said  well  that  I  could  not  believe  it."  She  kept  her  face 
in  her  hands,  catching  her  breath  with  the  sobs  that  shook 
her. 

"  Margaret !  Margaret ! "  he  besought  her.  But  she 
did  not  heed.  He  turned  away  in  desperation. 


42  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Is  it — is  it  irrevocable  ?  "  she  asked,  when  she  could 
command  herself: 

"  Could  Samson  have  built  the  temple  again?" 

"  There  must  be  some  retreat." 

"  I  have  given  my  word." 

"  You  can  buy  it  back  again." 

His  face  hardened.  "  So  Jasper  might  say,"  returned 
he.  "  Listen,  Margaret,"  he  entreated ;  "  I  am  within  my 
rights — my  legal  rights.  What  would  you  have  ?  May  I 
not  do  what  I  will  with  my  own  ?  In  his  letter  he  says 
that  he  reckons  his  '  half  interest,'  as  he  calls  it,  at  $75,- 
000,  and  that  he  '  can't  be  expected  to  give  up  a  thing 
like  that.'  An  hour  ago  I  sold  the  entire  range  and  cattle 
for  $25,000,  without  inquiring  his  preferences.  He  has 
given  it  up,"  he  said  grimly. 

She  looked  into  his  eyes  for  a  moment  in  silence.  At 
last  she  said,  "  Is  this  sale  completed?" 

"  No  ;  but  I  am  morally  bound  to  complete  it." 

"  You  shall  not." 

"What?" 

"  My  dear  James  you  shall  not.  Oh,  how  can  I  argue 
such  a  thing,  if  you  don't  see  it  ?  It  is  cruel,  it  is  wrong, 
it  is  wicked  ! " 

"  You  must  let  me  be  the  judge  of  that,  "Margaret," 
said  Deed,  gravely. 

"  0  James,  why  am  I  what  I  am  to  you,  if  I  may  not 
be  your  conscience,  when  yours — under  frightful  trial,  I 
know — has  left  you  ?  You  have  no  right  to  do  this  thing." 
She  came  close  to  his  side. 

"  Oh,  there  comes  your  teacher's  theory  of  life,"  he 
cried,  in  unbearable  irritation,  "  your  hidebound  New 
England  conscience,  that  will  not  see  circumstances,  that 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  43 

refuses  the  idea  of  palliation  as  if  it  were  a  snare,  that 
finds  the  same  wrong  in  an  act  under  all  conditions,  as  if 
killing  were  always  murder." 

"James,  James,"  begged  Margaret,  quite  calm  and 
brave  now,  "  don't  talk  of  me.  I  am  anything  you  say. 
Think  of  yourself.  Consider  the  life  of  remorse  you 
are  condemning  yourself  to.  Distrust  the  false  passion 
and  pride  that  tell  you  you  are  right  now.  You  are 
wrong.  Listen  to  me,  who  have  nothing  to  gain  by  tell 
ing  you  so.  You  are  wrong."  She  spoke  the  words  that 
came  to  her. 

"  Have  I  not  the  right  to  make  him  suffer  as  I  suf 
fer  ?  "  he  asked  coldly. 

"  I  don't  know.  You  have  not  the  right  to  use  all  your 
rights.  I  am  sure  of  that.  It  is  what  they  are  always 
telling  us,  but  is  it  the  less  true — the  world  would  be  in 
tolerable  if  every  one  demanded  all  he  is  entitled  to? 
You  must  feel  that.  Self-surrender,  self-denial,  all  that 
— are  they  only  phrases  in  the  books  ?  Are  they  too  big 
and  fine  for  our  every-day  world  ?  " 

She  paused  for  a  thoughtful  moment,  and  with  a 
glance  of  infinite  tenderness  regarded  him,  where  he 
stood  restlessly  gnawing  at  his  mustache,  and  snapping 
his  finger^ 

"  As  if  I  need  ask  !  "  she  exclaimed.  "  As  if  you  had 
ever  needed  anything  better  than  just  ordinary  Thurs 
day,  Friday,  and  Saturday  for  your  goodness,  dear !  Don't 
I  know  it?  Who  ever  used  more  every-day  generosity 
and  kindli — " 

"  Hush,  hush,  Margaret ! "  he  insisted.  "  The  thing's 
done.  I  tell  you." 

The  fire,  which  had  been  dying  down,  leaped  up,  and 


44  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

glowed  upon  his  face.  The  look  she  saw  on  it  taught  her 
patience.  "  Listen,  James,"  she  begged,  fighting  back  the 
sudden  tears,  which,  somehow,  had  slipped  by  her  guard. 

He  shook  himself  free  from  her  hand  with  a  kind  of 
courteous  impatience,  and  walked  to  the  other  side  of  the 
room. 

"  Don't  preach,  Margaret,  of  all  things." 

She  gazed  at  him  sadly.  "  Suppose  we  wait  until  to 
morrow  morning  to  speak  of  this,  dear,"  she  said  gently. 
"  I  can  talk  to  James  Deed ;  but  his  evil  spirit  I  don't 
know."  She  tried  to  smile. 

"  I  am  quite  myself,"  he  said  almost  stiffly.  "  Was  it 
not  I  who  was  wounded,  and  in  the  best  part  of  me — my 
love  for  him  ?  Why  should  it  not  be  the  best  part  which 
answers  it  ? "  He  spoke  with  a  kind  of  fierce  calmness, 
as  if  he  were  endeavouring  to  be  gentle  and  reasonable 
with  her,  and  found  it  hard. 

"  Is  it  the  best  part  which  tempts  to  vengeance  ? " 
she  asked  wearily. 

"  I  fancied  you  were  calling  it  that  in  your  heart,"  he 
said  with  bitterness.  "  And  if  it  were  ?  Did  not  Samson 
call  on  heaven  for  vengeance — that  was  his  word — '  venge 
ance  on  the  Philistines,'  and  was  he  not  richly  answered  ? 
Was  he  not  given  strength  for  it  ?  " 

"  0  James,"  she  cried  in  despair,  "  how  can  I  argue 
against  such  frightful  sophistries?" 

They  were  both  in  the  tense  mood  in  which  the  added 
word  snaps  the  bond  of  friendship,  of  blood,  of  love  itself. 

"You  need  not,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  from  her. 
"  We  have  had  more  than  enough  of  argument.  It  does 
not  change  my  intention.  I  shall  complete  the  sale  in 
the  morning." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  45 

He  was  about  to  leave  the  room,  but  she  called : 

«  James ! " 

"Well?" 

"You  must  not."  She  caught  her  breath,  and  sat 
hastily  upon  the  sofa. 

"  Pshaw  ! " 

"  I  tell  you  you  must  not.  I — I  will  not  have  it.  I 
have  my — my  rights,  as  well  as  you ;  my  rights  as  your 
wife  who  is  to  be.  I  will  not  have  your  property — my 
property — thrown  away  for  a  whim." 

He  came  toward  her  quickly.  She  shrank  involun 
tarily.  Her  face  was  white ;  she  set  her  teeth. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  ?  " 

She  nodded  painfully. 

"  It  would  have  been  simpler  to  say  so  in  the  begin 
ning — not  to  say  honester,"  he  said  with  slow  bitterness. 
"  You  might  have  spared  me  the  pain  of  knowing  that 
you  could  promise  to  give  it  all  up,  when  you  thought 
yourself  secure  from  being  held  to  your  word.  You 
might  have  saved  your  sermons." 

It  was  like  the  agony  of  death  to  hear  these  things 
from  him ;  but  she  shut  her  lips,  and  bore  it.  If  she 
spoke  now,  she  knew  that  her  tone  must  belie  her  words. 

"  A  moment  ago  you  said,"  he  went  on  coldly,  "that 
you  had  nothing  to  gain.  Pardon  me  if  I  say  that  you 
seem  to  have  had  much.  It  may  make  you  sleep  easier 
to-night,  if  I  tell  you  that  you  have  gained  it." 

He  put  his  hands  to  his  head  in  bewilderment,  caught 
up  his  hat,  and,  without  a  glance  at  her,  left  the  room. 

Margaret  rose,  and  closed  the  door  behind  him.  She 
stood  a  long  time  at  the  window,  trying  not  to  cry. 


46  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 


III. 

ELEVEN  thousand  feet  above  sea-level  the  dry  air 
reaches  the  point  of  saturation  with  a  kind  of  gasp  and 
shiver.  Philip  Deed  was  sure  of  the  storm  in  the  air 
half  an  hour  before  the  clouds  began  to  gather.  It  was 
the  day  on  which  he  was  to  meet  his  father  at  Maverick ; 
and  he  had  set  forth  in  the  morning  from  Pifion,  where 
he  had  spent  his  unprofitable  year  in  mining,  planning 
to  reach  Bayles's  Park  by  one  o'clock,  and  to  take  the 
railway  there  for  Maverick,  where  he  expected  to  arrive 
in  time  for  the  wedding.  Cutter,  who  also  had  failed  in 
the  mountains,  and  whose  arrangements  for  the  future 
were  indefinite,  was  going  to  the  wedding  with  Philip. 
His  family  had  always  known  the  Deeds  in  New  York, 
and  he  and  Philip  were  friends. 

The  air  grew  moist,  and  the  sky  darkened  as  they  put 
their  horses  at  the  ascent  out  of  Laughing  Valley,  into 
which  they  had  just  come  down  from  the  other  side.  A 
mile  up  the  trail  they  stopped  on  an  eminence  command- 
iug  the  valley,  to  look  about.  A  ray  of  sunshine  shot  a 
half-hearted  glance  from  behind  the  clouds  brooding 
above  the  way  they  were  to  take.  The  ray  was  instantly 
swallowed  up ;  but  the  valley  was  swept  by  a  momentary 
radiance,  under  which  it  started  dazzlingly  fresh  and 
green,  and  took  the  sudden  gold  on  its  face  with  a  danc 
ing  quiver  which  almost  excused  its  foolish  name. 

The  range  of  hills  over  which  they  had  just  come  rose 
behind  Laughing  Valley  City  to  the  north.  To  the  south 
the  exit  from  the  valley  was  through  Eed  Rock  Canon, 
between  the  narrow  walls  of  which  the  Chepita  fled  roar- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  47- 

ing.  The  sound  reached  them  where  they  stood  on  their 
height  at  the  edge  of  the  canon,  above  the  scattered  noises 
of  the  town,  which  at  this  hour  (just  before  the  three- 
o'clock  shift  at  the  mines)  was  as  peaceful,  and  almost  as 
noiseless,  as  if  it  had  not  been  a  city  on  all  the  maps. 

Where  the  Chepita  cast  itself  down  out  of  the  hills 
over  Moshier's  Hock,  at  the  other  end  of  the  valley,  they 
could  vaguely  see  its  white  leap ;  and  then  could  follow 
its  serene  course  through  the  town.  Down  at  their  feet 
they  watched  it  go  brawling  into  the  canon.  Quietly  as 
it  slipped  through  Laughing  Valley  City,  the  river  gave 
a  certain  effect  of  life  to  the  valley,  which  spread  a  vast 
green  lawn  at  their  feet,  unbroken  save  by  the  huddle  of 
buildings  at  its  centre,  and  by  the  dumps  of  green  or  grey 
or  red  that  marked  the  mines  outside  the  town.  The 
close-ranked  mountains  looked  down  from  every  side 
upon  the  young  city ;  and  the  only  apparent  points  of 
egress  to  the  world  without  were  those  by  which  the  river 
entered  and  left  the  valley — the  cleft  in  the  hills  through 
which  the  Chepita  hurled  itself  upon  the  fall,  and  the 
canon  by  which  it  swept  away. 

Philip  Deed  was  giving  up  his  mining  at  Pifion  be 
cause  his  father  wished  it,  not  because  he  liked  the  easy 
prospect  of  a  home  and  a  bank-account  held  out  to  him 
from  Maverick.  The  thing  for  which  he  actually  cared 
was  a  life  not  responsible  to  its  next  minute — a  life  that 
should  leave  him  altogether  free  to  speculate  with  him 
self.  At  twenty-three  Philip  Deed  was  an  interesting 
subject  for  prophecy.  It  would  surprise  no  one  who 
knew  him  if  he  should  turn  out  to  be  a  great  success — 
and  this  was  Cutter's  faith — but  the  betting  was  against 

it.     He  had  a  fine,  straggling  army  of  talents,  and  for 
4 


48  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

commander  of  them  a  gusty  temper.  The  sound  sense 
that  would  often  bless  him  was  for  the  most  part  present 
in  the  hours  when  he  did  not  need  it,  and  when  he  would 
not  have  been  anything  but  sensible  upon  any  temptation. 
He  was  wise  upon  impulse,  and  the  propriety  of  his  senti 
ments  in  his  best  hours  merely  served  to  shame  him  when 
he  was  less  wise :  it  did  not  establish  a  permanent  state 
of  wisdom  in  him.  He  made  mistakes  as  other  men  are 
respectable,  from  instinct.  He  often  had  occasion  to  de 
nounce  himself  passionately.  He  had  a  noble  and  un 
thinking  generosity,  a  warm  heart,  and  a  habit  of  taking 
people  at  their  own  valuation,  and  of  owing  more  than 
he  could  pay. 

There  was  a  generous  touch  even  in  Philip's  incapacity 
— for  it  amounted  to  that — to  perceive  the  delicate  mo 
ment  at  which  meum  melts  into  tuum.  It  was  a  kind  of 
incapacity  to  infect  an  entire  character,  and  it  infected 
Philip's;  at  strange  times  and  upon  odd  occasions  the 
fibre  for  which  one  instinctively  looked  as  the  accompani 
ment  of  other  fine  traits  in  him  was  missing :  it  was  like 
a  lacking  sense,  rather  than  a  vice,  as  excellent  people  are 
absent-minded.  It  might  nevertheless  have  been  odious 
— Jasper  said  it  was — if  it  had  not  been  seen  to  be  merely 
the  obverse  side  of  his  generosity :  what  was  his  was  yours, 
if  you  were  his  friend ;  and  it  followed,  as  the  kind  of 
corollary  to  which  no  open-handed  man  would  give  a 
thought,  that  what  was  yours  was  his.  Good-fellowship 
was  like  that ;  it  was  one  of  the  things  that  one  did  not 
question.  One  did  not  compel  one's  friend  to  ask  for 
one's  second  coat  when  one's  friend  was  shivering;  one 
gave  it,  and  asked  no  questions  when  the  friend  forgot  to 
return  it :  that  was  the  way  of  coats  and  friends.  And 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  49 

when  the  need  for  a  coat  was  one's  own,  it  was  a  poor 
compliment  to  one's  friend  if  one  could  not  trust  him 
for  as  good  an  understanding  of  the  transaction  as  one's 
own. 

Philip  had  never  reasoned  it  out — it  was  not  the  sort 
of  thing  to  reason  about — but  this  was,  in  general  terms, 
his  instinct  about  the  whole  business  of  give  and  take. 
He  had  an  entirely  good  conscience  about  his  money  deal 
ings,  and  obligations  of  every  sort.  He  knew  that  he 
borrowed  more  than  he  lent,  but  that  was  because  the 
borrowers  did  not  come  to  him  early  enough.  "When  he 
received  a  sum  of  money  there  were  always  a  dozen  tedi 
ous  people  who  wanted  it — people  to  whom  he  owed  it : 
they  got  hold  of  it  often  before  he  could  lend  it  to  any  of 
the  half-dozen  borrowers  who  usually  hang  about  such  a 
man.  About  certain  obligations  of  honour  he  had  as  sen 
sitive  a  pride  as  that  of  his  father,  who  never  owed  any 
body  a  penny ;  but  he  would  have  postponed  any  ordinary 
debt  to  lend  ten  dollars  to  a  friend  in  need,  and  he  would 
have  had  no  more  scruple  in  putting  the  gratification  of 
some  wish  of  his  own  before  it.  It  was,  in  fact,  often  a 
race  between  the  wish  and  the  creditor :  the  kind  of  wish 
that  it  took  some  time  and  trouble  to  gratify  was  an  ad 
vantage  to  the  creditor.  When  the  conditions  were  favour 
able,  he  would  often  arrive  first.  In  fine,  upon  principle 
and  in  practice,  Philip  was  always  generous  before  he 
was  just. 

He  would  have  found  it  difficult  to  explain  his  theory 
about  the  propriety  of  being  generous  to  himself.  It  was 
involved  in  the  foolish  pride,  not  unlike  a  sense  of  caste, 
which  had  given  him  a  belief,  cherished  in  a  careless  way 
from  his  boyhood  and  now  become  an  instinctive  feeling 


50  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

in  him,  like  a  religion,  that  certain  things  were  proper  to 
him.  Reduced  to  its  obvious  terms,  it  would  have  be 
come,  like  a  number  of  our  more  obstinate  inner  religions, 
an  absurdity.  Philip  got  along  with  his  religion  by  not 
reducing  it,  by  not  so  much  as  thinking  of  it.  He  acted 
upon  it.  Was  it  that  certain  insignia,  a  certain  cere 
monial,  a  peculiar  dignity  were  an  hereditary  appanage 
of  his  station?  But  what  was  his  station?  If  he  had 
been  brought  to  this,  he  would  have  urged  that  his  station 
was  to  be  Philip  Deed,  which  might  not  be  much,  but 
was  what  it  was.  He  could  not  pretend  to  explain. 

One  of  the  more  immediate  results  of  this  theory  of 
the  pre-eminence  of  the  debt  he  owed  permanently  to 
himself  above  the  accidental  obligations  incurred  in  pay 
ing  it,  was  that  his  unpaid  bills  in  Pifion,  over  and  above 
the  money  his  father  regularly  sent  him  to  run  his  mine, 
amounted  to  a  trifle  more  than  $400.  The  several  small 
debts  making  up  this  sum  began  to  be  pressing,  and  he 
was  glad  to  be  leaving  Pifion,  not  merely  because  the 
mines  he  had  been  working  for  himself  and  Jasper  offered 
no  prospect  of  yielding  ore  in  paying  quantities,  but  be 
cause  he  saw  no  present  means  of  paying  these  debts  by 
his  own  exertions,  and  they  had  reached  a  point  where  it 
was  inconvenient,  and  occasionally  a  little  humiliating,  to 
add  to  them.  He  meant  to  ask  his  father  to  lend  him  the 
money.  He  would  be  able  to  pay  him  in  six  months ;  he 
knew  where  he  could  make  twice  $400  by  that  time ;  and 
meanwhile  he  would  pay  him  interest.  He  disliked  to  be 
borrowing  from  his  father  in  the  loose  way  he  had  used 
hitherto.  They  would  make  it  a  business  transaction, 
and  he  should  have  his  note. 

"  Isn't  that  Pifion  Mountain  to  the  right  of  the  big 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  51 

dome  of  Ute  Chief  ? "  he  asked,  as  they  stood  on  their 
height,  looking  out  over  the  hills. 

"  Yes ;  I  make  it  out  so,"  said  Cutter.  "  Melancholy 
sight." 

"  Yes — oh,  yes,"  agreed  Philip,  heavily.  "  I've  been 
thinking  of  our  year  up  there :  what  an  ass  I  made  of 
myself  dropping  three  or  four  hundred  days  into  those 
holes  in  the  ground  on  Mineral  Hill ! " 

"  Ugh  ! "  grunted  Cutter. 

"  They  weren't  much  as  days,  of  course,  but  they  were 
the  best  I  had  at  the  time.  They  might  have  brought 
me  in  a  clear  ten  thousand  or  so  if  I  had  set  them  to 
work  bank-presidenting,  or  something.  Why — think  of 
it ! — a  fellow  might  have  married  on  the  earnings  of  those 
days.  And  there  they  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  '  Little  Ci 
pher  '  and  the  '  Pay  Ore.'  '  Pay  Ore ' !  "  he  exclaimed 
scornfully.  '.'Happy  thought  of  its  fairy  godmother, 
that  name." 

"  Well,  I'm  not  banking  heavily  on  the  '  Little  Cipher.' 
But  it  was  luck  enough  for  one  day  to  locate  the  '  Pay 
Ore.'  The  Ryan  outfit  are  going  to  have  those  days  out 
of  the  '  Pay  Ore,'  you  know,  Deed.  There's  stuff  in  that 
claim." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  assented  Philip,  indifferently  ;  "  low- 
grade  stuff.  I  don't  see  how  it  helps  me  that  it  would 
pay  to  ship  if  it  assayed  three  dollars  better.  It  might  as 
well  be  a  thousand." 

"  Wait  a  while.  It  will  be  a  thousand — a  thousand 
better  than  pay  dirt." 

Philip  made  a  contemptuous  sound,  but  his  contempt 
was  outward  only.  He  believed  in  the  future  of  the  "  Pay 
Ore,"  now  that  money  enough  was  to  be  put  into  it  to 


52  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

sink  the  shaft  to  the  proper  depth,  as  men  believe  in  the 
woman  of  their  secret  ideal — the  woman  whom  they  shall 
one  day  meet  and  love,  but  whose  virtues  it  is  unprofitable 
to  discuss  meanwhile. 

"  That's  all  right,"  returned  Cutter,  unshakenly.  "  I've 
been  down  in  the  mine.  Eyan's  going  to  make  a  big  stake 
out  of  his  lease  of  the  '  Pay  Ore.'  Watch  him  and  see. 
He  might  even  take  something  out  of  the  '  Little  Cipher.' 
He  and  Buckham  know  what  they  are  about.  Who  sup 
posed  there  was  anything  in  the  '  Celestina '  until  they 
took  hold  of  it  on  a  lease?  And  now  look  at  it.  Why, 
they  were  saying  in  Pifion  yesterday  that  the  last  assay 
gave  a  thousand  dollars  to  the  ton." 

"  Pshaw,  Cutter !  I  am  ashamed  of  that  bargain  with 
Ryan." 

His  companion  permitted  himself  to  smile,  "  Well,  you 
ought  to  be — the  other  way.  You  didn't  get  enough. 
Man  alive,  you  don't  suppose  he  and  Buckham  are  here 
for  their  health.  How  many  pairs  of  eyes  do  you  think 
they  need  to  see  that  you  are  next  the  '  Celestina,'  and 
that  the  '  Pay  Ore,'  anyway,  and  perhaps  the  '  Little 
Cipher,'  is  a  straight  continuation  of  their  lead?"  He 
had  raised  his  voice,  but  he  lowered  it  to  say :  "  Why, 
look  here,  Deed ;  I'll  tell  you  what  I'll  do :  I'll  stake  my 
reputation  as  a  mining  engineer  that  they  have  struck 
a  true  fissure  vein  in  the  '  Celestina,'  and  that  it  dips 
your  way." 

Philip  laughed.  "  Your  confidence  is  charming,  Cut 
ter — charming.  If  you  will  give  me  a  note  of  introduc 
tion  to  the  person  you  have  in  mind  who  is  prepared  to 
furnish  me  with  board  and  lodging  in  exchange  for  such 
confidence  as  that,  I  don't  see  what  more  I  can  ask." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  53 

The  silence  that  fell  between  them  recognized  the 
existence  of  the  subject  they  were  shying  away  from.  It 
was  an  hour  since  Philip  had  been  handed  his  father's 
long  telegram  as  they  passed  through  Laughing  Valley 
City.  He  had  bit  his  lip,  and  turned  it  over  to  Cutter. 
They  had  found  no  words  for  it  since,  and  were  still  try 
ing  to  talk  of  other  things. 

"  I  wonder  if  you'd  mind,  Deed,  if  I  were  to  say  what 
an  awful  cad  that  brother  of  yours  seems  to  be,"  Cutter 
broke  forth  at  last,  while  they  still  stood  looking  down 
into  the  valley  from  their  eminence. 

Philip  ground  his  teeth. 

"  Hardly ;  it  saves  me  the  trouble.  Oh,"  he  cried, 
venting  the  feeling  he  had  been  choking  back  in  a  help 
less  shout  of  rage,  "  to  think  of  his  coming  it  over  father 
and  me  like  that !  Confound  it,  I  believe  I  could  have 
stood  being  swindled  out  of  my  whole  future,  and  have 
managed  to  pull  a  decent  face  about  it,  if  he  had  done  it 
like  a  gentleman.  But  this — !  The  thing's  so  dirty,  so 
small,  so  sneaking !  Why,  Cutter,  it's  the  grade  of  mid 
night  assassination.  Fancy  father !  The  favourite  son ! " 
He  gave  a  scornful  little  laugh,  and  dashed  his  hand  to 

his  eyes.  "  D the  fellow,  anyway ! "  he  cried.  "  I 

swear,  when  I  think  of  it,  it  seems  too  low  a  thing  for  any 
one  who  has  a  drop  of  my  father's  blood  in  him  to  have 
done.  I  wasn't  old  enough  when  my  mother  died  to 
know  her  intimately,  but  I  don't  believe  she  was  like  that. 
And  to  think  that  I  have  spent  a  year  in  those  cursed 
mountains  up  at  Pifion,  working  that  mine  for  him  right 
alongside  my  own;  rising  early  and  going  to  bed  late; 
giving  up  every  Christian  habit;  denying  myself  every 
kind  of  decency  of  living — yes,  forgetting  how  it  might 


54  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

feel  to  live  like  a  gentleman ;  and  all  of  it  just  as  much, 
every  ounce  as  much,  for  his  infernal  mine  as  for  my  own ; 
and  I  get  this  for  it.  I  tell  you,  Cutter,  some  things  turn 
you  sour.  The  beastly  ingratitude  of  the  thing  makes  me 
so  sick  that  I  can't  kick  against  it.  I  haven't  any  kick 
left  in  me.  I  believe  some  day,  when  I  am  cooler  about 
it,  I  shall  be  sorry  for  the  fellow  for  being  such  a  devil  of 
a  cad.  And  to  think  that  he  is  my  brother — yes,  and  my 
father's  son ! " 

"  Pshaw  !  He'll  never  stick  to  that  point,  Deed.  It's 
too  indecent." 

"  Won't  he  ! "  cried  Philip.  "  You've  got  a  lot  to 
learn  about  Jasper.  He'll  not  only  stick  to  it,  but  he'll 
prove  that  he's  right.  And  what's  more,  he  will  think  so 
himself.  Jasper  wouldn't  do  anything  he  didn't  think 
right.  He'll  think  it  right  if  it  chokes  him.  He  has 
done  the  right  thing,  and  done  it  at  the  right  time,  ever 
since  I  can  remember ;  and  I've  always  admired  it  in  him. 
A  man  can't  help  admiring  a  quality  so  remote  from  him 
self  as  that,  you  know,"  he  said  bitterly.  "  Jasper  isn't 
the  kind  of  fool  to  chuck  away  a  year  in  a  place  like 
Pifion.  He  knows  better,  and  I  respect  him  for  it.  His 
discretion  and  propriety,  that  habit  of  his  of  doing  the 
wise  and  sensible  thing  while  I  was  lucklessly  going  to 
some  new  style  of  dogs  every  six  months  or  so,  and  disap 
pointing  my  father — you  can't  think,  Cutter,  what  an  im 
pression  that  makes  on  a  younger  brother.  Jasper's  very 
schoolmasters  used  to  praise  him,  and  even  then  I  knew 
they  were  right,  and  that  I  had  earned  my  stool  in  a  cor 
ner  for  shirked  lessons.  As  early  as  that  he  had  a  sort  of 
instinct  for  the  buttered  side  of  life,  and  you  see  he  hasn't 
forgotten  it.  You  ought  to  have  played  marbles  with  a 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  55 

boy  for  '  keeps '  to  really  understand  a  man,  you  know, 
Cutter." 

"  Oh,  come  !  "  said  Cutter.  "  His  habit  of  being  right 
isn't  going  to  help  him  to  hold  that  ranch  against  your 
claim.  Your  father  will  have  him  out  of  that  before  we 
get  to  Maverick.  Jasper  isn't  the  only  man  who  knows 
law." 

"  Humph  !  Poor  father ! "  sighed  Philip.  He  lighted 
a  cigarette.  "  He  won't  have  much  heart  left  for  law,  I'm 
afraid.  His  way  is  a  quicker  way.  I  can't  think  what 
would  have  happened  to  Jasper  if  he  had  told  that  to 
father  instead  of  writing  it.  Like  him  to  use  a  letter  for 
it !  Father  doesn't  bear  things  well,  you  know.  They 
make  him  wild,  just  at  first.  It's  part  of  Jasper's  discre 
tion  that  he  knew  better  than  to  stand  up  and  tell  him 
such  a  thing.  I  believe  father  would  have  had  to  kill 
him." 

"  And  that  is  the  kind  of  man  you  think  likely  to  sit 
down  under  such  an  injury  and  twirl  his  thumbs?" 

"  Hardly.  He  won't  be  sitting  down.  He  will  be 
raging  about.  But  it  won't  do  him  any  good.  We've  only 
got  the  barest  facts ;  but  you  can  figure  out  a  good  deal 
if  one  of  your  known  quantities  is  character  ;  and  if  you 
know  Jasper's  character  you  may  be  snre  that  he's  behind 
the  strongest  kind  of  fortress,  if  it  comes  to  that.  The 
law  can't  touch  him,  I'll  wager.  Jasper  always  knows 
what  he  is  about ;  he's  got  his  earthworks  piled  sky  high. 
You  might  as  well  try  to  storm  that  cliff  over  there.'' 
He  pointed  to  the  sheer  lift  of  rock  opposite  them.  "  It 
would  be  a  pity,  I'm  sure,  if  a  man's  going  to  abuse  a 
trust,  if  he  shouldn't  make  a  good  job  of  it.  Poor  father ! 
That's  what  cuts  him  up,  I  know.  He  trusted  the  fellow, 


56  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

you  see.  Trusted  him !  Heavens !  He  loved  him  ! 
Pshaw  !  Let's  talk  of  something  else,  Cutter.  What's 
become  of  your  trouble  ?  Come,  I  don't  want  to  monop 
olize  all  the  fun.  Tell  me,  old  fellow,"  he  said,  laying 
his  hand  on  the  other's  shoulder ;  "  do  you  hear  any 
thing?" 

Cutter  bit  an  end  off  the  cigarette  he  had  just  lighted, 
and  nibbled  at  the  tendrils  of  tobacco  nervously.  He 
glanced  with  a  vengeful  look  at  the  stony  wall  opposite, 
as  he  cast  the  cigarette  out  into  the  air,  and  watched  it 
fall  in  a  wavering  line  into  the  canon,  a  thousand  feet  be 
neath  them.  "  No  ;  nothing,"  he  answered  at  last. 

"And  you  want  to?" 

"  Want  to  ?  You  don't  suppose  I  have  any  will  about 
it,  do  you  ?  A  man  in  love,  as  you  may  find  out  some 
day,  Deed,  is  away  past  '  want '  and  '  not  want.'  It's  all 
'  must.' " 

"  Yes,"  admitted  Philip,  sententiously ;  "  it's  been  de 
scribed  to  me  that  way.  But  one  would  say — " 

"  Of  course  they  would ;  and  awfully  easy  it  is  to  say, 
when  it's  somebody  else,  and  the  girl  doesn't  happen  to 
be  the  archetype  of  girlhood,  and  the  one  maiden  arranged 
for  you  from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  possessed  of  the 
only  smile  and  the  only  droop  of  eyelid  you  have  any  use 
at  all  for,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  They  babble  about  the 
happiness  of  love  until  a  man  has  to  try  it,  as  he  tries 
smoking,  because  it  seems  at  the  time  about  the  most  in 
teresting  experience  one  can  buy ;  but  it  is  a  good  deal 
like  the  smoking  when  you  have  taken  a  puff  or  two  at 
it :  your  cigar  has  a  Havana  wrapper,  '  as  advertised ' ; 
it's  the  Hoboken  filler  that  breaks  you  up." 

Philip  roared  at  the  gloomy  face  with  which  Cutter 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  57 

said  this ;  but  his  companion's  countenance  kept  its  rue 
fulness. 

It  was  a  year  since  Cutter's  easy  life  had  been  given  a 
violently  new  twist  by  Elsa  Berrian's  refusal  of  him.  He 
had  left  New  York  immediately  after,  in  a  passion  of 
rage,  humiliation,  and  love,  and  his  hurt  was  still  fresh  in 
him. 

The  day  on  which  she  refused  him  held  more  instruc 
tion  for  Cutter  about  the  constitution  of  human  society 
than  he  had  gathered  in  the  entire  preceding  twenty-four 
years.  Perhaps  most  men  can  look  back  to  such  days, 
when  life  closed  about  them  with  a  kind  of  rigour,  and 
they  fought  their  way  through  the  desperate  view  of  the 
excessive  and  useless  hardness  of  things  (which  suggested 
suicide  as  a  natural  and  not  unpicturesque  remedy)  to  the 
mixed  doggedness  and  pluck  that  enabled  them  to  rise 
next  morning,  and  have  a  try,  at  least,  at  the  inexorability 
of  Fate.  Cutter,  when  he  had  tasted  the  dregs  of  this 
species  of  learning,  was,  to  his  own  sense,  a  stalking  re 
pository  of  melancholy  wisdom. 

He  had  thought  his  misery  must  make  all  things  indif 
ferent.  But  when  he  snatched  at  Philip's  suggestion  that 
he  should  go  West  with  him,  he  had  not  supposed  it  would 
be  so  unlike  New  York.  He  had  what  he  called  his  "  pro 
fession  " — he  had  studied  mining  engineering  for  two 
years  at  Columbia — but  the  demand  for  his  inexperience 
at  Pifion  left  him  plenty  of  time  to  wish  he  had  not  been 
in  such  a  hurry  to  leave  a  life  which  was  arranged  for 
him,  and  which  he  understood,  for  the  crude  West.  His 
dissatisfaction  may  not  have  been  altogether  unconnected 
with  the  fact  that  at  home  he  had  been  a  young  man 
about  town  with  a  rich  father,  who  did  not  object  to  his 


58  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

idling  until  he  should  have  found  the  thing  he  wanted  to 
do;  while  at  Pifion  every  one  was  a  worker,  and  was 
grossly,  even  brutally,  intolerant  of  any  one  who  was  not. 

He  was  going  to  stay  a  year,  though.  He  was  resolved 
upon  that.  He  would  have  felt  it  to  be  a  confession  that 
he  lacked  "  sand "  to  give  it  up  earlier ;  and  he  was 
really  too  heart-sick  about  Elsa  to  be  able  to  think  with 
patience  of  revisiting  New  York  for  a  long  time  to  come. 
It  ended  in  his  forcing  his  habit  of  laziness  into  regular 
application  to  such  business  as  found  its  way  to  him,  and, 
for  the  first  time,  he  began  to  study  mining  engineering 
in  earnest. 

He  felt,  after  a  few  months  of  life  in  Pifion,  as  if  he 
had  "  had  a  great  deal  of  nonsense  knocked  out  of  him." 
He  liked  the  outdoor  life,  and,  when  he  could  keep  the 
old  Cutter  under,  he  got  along  fairly  well  with  the  men 
with  whom  his  business  brought  him  in  contact.  But  it 
was  perhaps  because,  after  all,  he  could  not  help  letting 
them  see  that  he  could  imagine  nobler,  not  to  say  more 
interesting,  examples  of  the  race  than  they,  that  he  was  a 
failure  at  Piflon,  when  all  was  said. 

It  was  not  quite  his  fault.  It  was  not  to  be  expected 
that  he  should  at  once  be  able  to  rid  himself  of  the  New 
York  theory  of  life ;  and  that,  other  things  being  equal 
(though  other  things  had  a  hard  time  of  it  to  be  equal 
under  such  conditions),  a  man  should  not  seem  somehow 
a  better  man  to  whom  such  words  as  Wallack's,  Daly's, 
Del's,  the  Union  League,  the  Academy,  Brown's,  suggested 
the  same  host  of  associations  that  they  suggested  to  him. 
This  was,  of  course,  no  more  than  the  deathless  and  in 
vincible  New  York  conceit,  which  amuses  the  country  at 
all  times ;  but  it  was  perhaps  dearer  to  him  than  to  the 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  59 

usual  New  Yorker,  because  he  had  for  a  number  of  years 
had  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  foster  it.  It  was  his  mis 
fortune  that  he  had  somewhat  less  than  the  usual  tact, 
which  helps  other  New  Yorkers  to  cloak  their  sense  of  an 
obvious  superiority  ;  but  it  was  happily  his  luck  not  to  be 
a  snob  in  any  sense  or  degree. 

Philip,  who  had  long  since  accepted  the  West,  and 
whose  direct  habit  of  thought  removed  him  from  the 
temptation  of  remaining  the  critical  outsider  who  analyzes 
the  situation  it  is  his  main  duty  to  be  living,  was  never 
tired  of  making  game  of  Cutter's  crude  struggles  to  be 
crude,  and  of  his  habit  of  pettifogging  with  his  temporary 
Western  lot.  He  had  been  accustomed  to  defend  him 
when  he  was  ridiculed  in  Piflon ;  but  in  the  privacy  of 
the  cabin  which  the  two  occupied  together  on  Mineral 
Hill,  he  guyed  Cutter's  amusing  fopperies  as  much  as  the 
camp  could  have  desired.  Cutter  continued  to  apply  his 
daintiness  to  the  coarse  exigencies  of  Western  life  with  a 
smile,  and  good-humouredly  went  on  being  in  his  dress  the 
most  elegant  rowdy  that  ever  was.  He  was  a  picturesque 
figure  when  in  full  regalia,  with  his  fire-new  chapereros, 
his  nickel-plated  spurs,  his  spotless  sombrero,  on  which  he 
kept  a  fresh  leather  band  at  all  times,  his  English  riding- 
boots,  and  his  crop.  His  revolver  was  of  the  latest  make, 
and  his  cartridge-belt  looked  as  if  he  never  used  it. 

Cutter's  faults,  like  this  little  foible  of  his,  were  for  the 
most  part  on  the  surface.  Beneath  them  all  he  was  as 
simple,  honest,  and  manly  as  any  one  need  be  ;  and  men 
who  had  need  of  a  loyal  friend  sought  Lenox  Cutter.  The 
self-confidence,  which  was  not  quite  conceit,  and  the  touch 
of  selfishness  which  went  with  it,  were  of  that  not  too  in 
sistent  sort  which  women  are  accustomed  to  the  need  of 


60  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

condoning  in  the  men  of  their  acquaintance  daily,  and 
which  men — because  they  know  how  much  of  both  quali 
ties  a  man  needs  to  earn  a  living — are  accustomed  to  tol 
erate  so  long  as  the  like  qualities  in  themselves  are  not 
trodden  upon. 

The  clouds  had  been  gathering  while  they  talked,  and 
hung,  a  threatening  black  bank,  in  the  west  as  Cutter, 
turning  away  from  Philip's  laugh,  glanced  at  them. 

"  We  are  going  to  catch  it,"  he  said.  "  Shall  we  go 
on?" 

Philip  put  out  his  hand  from  his  pony  to  test  the  air. 
The  harsh  damp  that  had  fallen  on  the  day  made  itself 
felt  between  his  interrogating  thumb  and  forefinger. 

"  I  must,  you  know.  They  will  be  looking  for  me 
at  Maverick  to-day.  I  couldn't  risk  being  snowed  up 
down  there  in  Laughing  Valley  City  for  a  week  or  two. 
But  you  must  wait,  Cutter.  There's  nothing  to  hurry 
you."  \ 

"  Pshaw,  we  shall  get  to  Bayles's  Park  before  the  fun 
begins.  Anyway,  we'll  see  it  out  together,  unless  you  want 
to  get  rid  of  me." 

"  You're  a  brick,  Cutter ;  but  you'd  better  stay.  I  am 
going  to  have  company,  whether  or  no,  I  think."  He 
nodded  towards  the  town.  "  Down  the  trail  there — do  you 
see  ?  " 

Cutter,  following  the  direction  of  his  nod,  saw  a  large 
crowd  of  men  on  horseback  issuing  from  the  town,  which, 
a  few  moments  earlier,  had  seemed  depopulated.  They 
had  just  passed  the  last  group  of  cabins,  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  settlement,  and  were  riding  at  a  canter  up  the  first 
rise  of  the  long  hill  which  the  young  men  had  climbed 
half-way.  In  the  still  air  the  talk  of  the  company  rose 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  61 

loudly.  It  was  plain  that  an  unusual  event  had  called 
them  forth. 

"  Let's  have  the  glass,"  said  Cutter,  suddenly.  "  Fact ! " 
he  exclaimed,  after  a  moment.  "  There's  a  young  girl 
among  them,  riding  alongside  the  tall  fellow  in  front. 
See  ?  " 

Philip  took  the  glass  Cutter  handed  him,  and  scanned 
the  party.  "  By  Jove ! "  He  studied  the  shouting  throng 
anxiously  for  a  moment.  "  I  don't  more  than  half  like 
the  look  of  that  crowd,  Cutter.  The  girl — why,  man, 
she's—" 

"  Bather  !  See  how  she  bears  herself  at  the  head  of 
that  crazy  lot.  A  lady  ?  She's  a  queen." 

"  Yes,"  assented  Deed,  musingly,  while  he  kept  the 
glass  upon  the  moving  group.  "  But  the  man  in  the  cen 
tre — what  do  you  make  of  him  ?  " 

"Which?"  asked  Cutter,  taking  the  glass.  "The 
clerical-looking  chap  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  I  thought  he  looked  like  a  clergyman." 

"  He  is,  too,  by  George.  See  here,  Deed,  there's  going 
to  be  a  circus  here  of  some  sort.  "We'll  have  to  see  this 
thing  out." 

Philip  nodded.  "  Do  you  notice  how  all  the  gestures 
point  his  way ;  and  how  they  seem  to  be  shouting  at  him, 
and  keeping  him  in  the  centre,  while  he  sits  his  horse  with 
out  a  word.  Do  you  know,  I  believe  he's  the  row." 

Cutter's  restless  pony  would  not  stand  while  he  turned 
the  glass  on  the  crowd  again.  He  got  off,  and,  putting 
an  arm  through  the  rein,  made  an  attentive  observation. 

"  It  can't  be,"  he  said  at  length. 

"What?" 

"  That  they  are  running  him  out  of  town." 


62  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

"  Why,  my  dear  fellow,  it  fits  in  perfectly  with  all 
you're  in  the  habit  of  pretending  you  believe  about  the 
cloth." 

"  Stuff !  I  never  said  they  were  rascals,"  said  Cutter, 
keeping  the  glass  to  his  eyes.  He  put  the  glass  down,  and 
remounted. 

"What  do  you  make  of  the  girl's  relation  to  him ?" 
asked  Philip  after  a  moment. 

"  Oh,  daughter,  I  suppose.  She  doesn't  look  as  if  she 
belonged  to  any  of  the  rest  of  the  mob." 

"  Careful  there,  Cutter ;  careful ! "  He  was  straining 
his  eyes  through  the  glass.  "  Some  of  them  may  be  Eng 
lishmen.  In  fact,  I  think  I  see  a  viscount.  That's  no 
way  to  speak  of  the  imported  article." 

The  group  was  coming  within  easy  eye-shot.  A  shout 
that  went  up  at  the  moment  sounded  close  by. 

"The  imported  article  has  a  domestic  howl,"  said 
Cutter. 

"  Yes ;  and  it's  getting  precious  near.  We  mustn't  let 
them  find  us  studying  them." 

With  one  of  the  silent  twitches  of  the  rein  understood 
by  cattle-ponies,  they  put  their  horses  into  a  canter,  and 
passed  out  of  sight  of  the  crowd  by  a  turn  in  the  trail, 
which  writhed  about  the  hill  until,  near  the  summit,  it 
pushed  forth  in  the  direction  of  their  journey,  and  be 
gan  to  find  its  way  loftily  along  the  walls  of  Red  Rock 
Canon.  The  winding  trail  brought  them  in  a  moment  to 
a  point  just  above  that  which  they  had  left,  and,  looking 
down  from  behind  a  pile  of  rocks  shielding  them  from 
observation,  they  saw  the  party  halted  there.  It  was  a 
shaggy  mob,  not  carrying  out  in  its  dress  its  suggested 
English  birth  and  breeding. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  63 

It  seemed  to  be  made  up  of  all  classes  of  the  town's 
population.  Those  in  the  group  at  the  left,  with  clay- 
grimed  trousers  stuffed  in  their  boots,  were  from  the 
mines,  and,  in  one  or  two  instances,  the  candles  which 
they  had  apparently  neglected  to  put  down  in  their  haste 
were  carried  by  the  steel  hooks  upon  their  fingers.  The 
two  wearing  white  shirts  (the  rest  were  clothed  in  the 
flannel  of  the  West)  had  a  hard  look,  and  might  be  gam 
blers.  The  shopkeepers,  who  had  come  along  to  see  the 
fun,  were  to  be  distinguished  by  the  eccentricity  of  allow 
ing  their  trousers  to  drape  themselves  outside  their  boots. 
There  were  a  couple  of  cow-boys,  with  chapereros,  spurs, 
and  sombreros,  and  with  lariats  coiled  about  their  saddle- 
pommels.  Most  of  the  crowd  carried  their  weapons  in 
sight.  Some  of  the  revolvers  were  to  be  seen  peeping 
from  saddle-holsters.  The  cow-boys  wore  their  "  guns  " 
in  cartridge-belts  about  their  waists.  It  was  a  threaten 
ing-looking  lot ;  yet,  when  the  leader  drew  his  fat  black 
revolver  from  his  belt,  and  began  to  toy  with  it,  his  play 
ful  use  of  it  seemed  merely  a  waggish  substitute  for  the 
hems  and  haws  of  other  public  speakers. 

The  crowd,  grouping  itself  about  him,  arraigned  the 
clergyman  before  them,  and  somewhat  apart  (still  on  his 
horse),  with  that  eye  for  the  scenic  and  dramatic  which 
plays  its  unconscious  share  in  all  the  extra-legal  functions 
assumed  by  the  people  in  the  country  beyond  the  Missis 
sippi.  The  tone  in  which  the  leader  addressed  the  clergy 
man  was  peremptory,  certainly ;  but  his  address  had  its 
humorous  moments,  and  once — when,  from  the  pitch  of 
his  voice,  the  listeners  above  guessed  that  he  was  bur 
lesquing  the  hortatory  clerical  manner — the  guffaw  greet 
ing  the  bit  of  farce  showed  how  the  sovereign  people  may 
5 


64:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

find  rewards  even  in  the  solemn  and  painful  duty  of  ad 
ministering  justice.  Philip  watched  the  scene  intently. 
"  We  shall  have  to  take  a  hand  in  this,"  he  whispered  at 
last.  "  They  mean  to  lynch  him." 

"  No,  no,"  answered  Cutter,  under  his  breath ;  "  the 
leader  is  beginning  on  a  set  of  resolutions.  They  don't 
resolve  at  lynching-bees ;  they  act.  Besides,  what  would 
they  be  doing  with  the  girl  ?  They  are  running  him  out." 

Philip  said  nothing,  but  glanced  thoughtfully  at  the 
clouds,  which  had  been  folding  hill  after  hill  while  they 
waited,  and  had  now  totally  obscured  the  mountains, 
which,  in  fair  weather,  seemed  so  near  Laughing  Valley 
City  that  it  appeared  at  times  as  if  one  might  touch  them 
by  stretching  out  one's  hand.  The  vapour  scurried  close 
above  them.  They  knew  that  their  own  hill  must  be  out 
of  sight  from  the  town.  The  air  grew  chillier. 

"  Perhaps  they  might  better  lynch  him,"  said  Philip, 
at  length.  "  Do  you  remember  when  they  ran  that  tin 
horn  gambling  outfit  out  of  Pinon  ?  It  was  just  such  a 
day  as  this  has  been — all  sun  until  ten  o'clock.  You  sur 
veyed  the  '  Little  Cipher '  and  the  '  Pay  Ore  '  for  me  that 
morning,  and  the  weather  couldn't  have  been  fairer.  But 
how  it  got  its  back  up  after  they  were  escorted  out  of 
camp !  It  wasn't  an  hour  before  the  town  was  trying  to 
find  itself." 

"  Yes,"  admitted  Cutter.     "  It  snowed." 

"  Snowed  ?  You  couldn't  see  the  electric  lights  until 
you  ran  against  the  poles.  And  those  fellows,  wandering 
towards  shelter  in  that  storm,  without  a  horse,  and  with 
no  telegraph-poles  to  guide  them  to  Castaway  Springs — I 
know,  you  always  say  the  vigilance  committee  couldn't 
suppose  it  was  going  to  snow.  But  when  they  brought 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  65 

the  bodies  in  the  week  after — do  you  remember  ? — it  was 
awful  to  see  the  camp  find  its  conscience.  Absolutions 
would  have  had  a  livelier  sale  than  whiskey  in  Pinon,  that 
day,  I've  often  thought." 

"The  wind  isn't  right  for  an  old-fashioned  blizzard 
to-day,"  said  Cutter,  divining  his  thought.  "  You  and  I 
and  the  minister  will  get  through  all  right  if  they'll  only 
start  him  ;  but  they'll  have  to  get  a  move  on  soon." 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  him,"  said  Philip. 

"  Why,  great  heaven  !  Deed,  you  don't  suppose  they 
are  going  to  send  her  along  ?  " 

"  Send  her  ?  No.  But  she'll  do  what  she  likes,  I 
think ;  and  you  don't  believe  she'll  desert  her  father,  do 
you  ?  " 

Deed  took  the  glass  from  its  case  again,  and  directed 
it  to  where  the  girl  stood  withdrawn  at  a  considerable 
distance,  out  of  ear-shot,  gazing  on  the  scene  with  a  face 
of  anxious  misery.  He  had  not  seen  her  closely  before. 
She  seemed  a  young  girl.  She  might  be  twenty  or  twenty- 
one,  not  more. 

"  By  Jove ! "  he  exclaimed,  in  a  low  tone. 

Cutter  took  the  glass  he  offered.  "  She  is  pretty,"  he 
admitted. 

"  Pretty ! "  cried  Philip. 

Cutter  smiled.  "  Well,  do  you  want  to  go  down  and 
rescue  her?  I'm  with  you." 

"  From  what  ?  Don't  you  see  what  delicate  consid 
eration  and  courtesy  they  use  towards  her  ?  See  the  tall 
one  standing  guard  over  her  privacy  with  averted  eyes. 
And  didn't  you  notice,  as  they  came  up  the  hill,  how  first 
one  and  then  another  would  ride  forward  to  see  if  there 
was  anything  he  could  do  for  her?  Why,  those  fellows 


66  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

are  knights,  you  know,  Cutter,  when  it  comes  to  regard 
for  a  woman — especially  a  woman  above  them.  By  George, 
she  has  an  air ! "  He  spent  a  long  moment  watching  her 
through  the  glass.  "  She  is  the  princess  they  treat  her 
like ;  and  she  can  unbend,  too.  See  the  gracious  smile 
she  gives  her  subject-captor — the  tall  fellow.  He's  been 
offering  to  fetch  her  an  ice  from  the  north  pole,  and  she 
has  declined,  with  the  sort  of  grace  that  makes  denial  a 
favour." 

The  leader  folded  the  paper  from  which  he  had  been 
reading  the  resolutions,  and  stuck  it  in  his  belt.  Philip, 
turning  his  glass  on  the  minister,  caught  the  glance  of 
uneasy  scorn  with  which  he  awaited  the  next  movement 
of  his  persecutors.  It  was  violent  only  in  its  sarcasm: 
they  lifted  their  wide-brimmed  hats  as  one  man,  and  made 
way  for  him  to  pass.  The  unanimity  and  silence  with 
which  this  was  accomplished  would  have  been  impressive 
if  it  had  not  been  rather  laughable.  The  minister  winced, 
but  straightened  himself  immediately  on  his  horse,  and 
rode  by  the  ordeal  of  the  row  of  eyes,  fixed  contemptuously 
upon  him,  with  proudly  lifted  head.  Jack  Devine,  the 
leading  saloon-keeper  of  the  town,  bridled  in  imitation  of 
his  haughty  carriage,  and  a  smile  ran  about.  The  minis 
ter  continued  to  look  before  him,  implying  his  indifference 
as  well  as  he  might  by  the  walk  out  of  which  he  scorned 
to  press  his  horse.  The  crowd  seemed  under  the  spell  of 
its  own  silence,  and  no  jeer  broke  from  it  until  the  minis 
ter  had  passed  the  last  man,  and  was  on  his  way  up  the 
hill. 

A  jocose  stone  or  two  pursued  him  amid  the  derisive 
yells  that  now  rose,  and  one  of  the  group,  creeping  nimbly 
up  behind,  smote  the  horse  resoundingly  with  a  cudgel. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  67 

The  beast  gave  a  snorting  bound,  and  leaped  forward  up 
the  steep  at  a  gallop.  The  clergyman's  hat — an  English 
parson's  wideawake — was  blown  from  his  head  by  the 
sudden  movement,  and  his  dignity  was  scattered  upon 
the  wind  which  wafted  it  from  him  towards  the  crowd, 
and  which  blew  his  thin  locks  out  behind  as  the  horse 
scampered  up  the  uneven  ascent,  reckless  of  rocks  and 
turns. 

Philip  had  seen  the  girl's  streaming  eyes  as  she  started 
to  follow  him  and  was  gently  withheld  ;  and  now  he  saw 
her  dry  her  tears  with  a  start  of  indignation,  and  point 
imperiously  to  the  flying  hat.  The  tall  young  man  beside 
her  made  after  it,  and  returned  it  humbly  to  her.  She 
nodded  her  thanks,  and  at  the  same  moment,  with  a  dex 
terous  hand,  wheeled  her  horse,  and  with  a  smart  touch 
of  the  whip  set  off  at  a  run  after  her  father. 

The  thing  was  done  so  quickly  that  no  one  had  time 
to  interfere,  and  all  stood  gazing  stupidly  after  her  for  a 
moment.  Then  the  tall  young  man  gave  his  pony  the 
spur,  and  followed  her.  His  animal's  clattering  hoofs  on 
the  rocks  urged  her  horse  on,  and  he  did  not  overtake  her 
until  she  was  rounding  the  summit  on  which  the  young 
men  awaited,  unseen,  the  issue  of  the  scene  below.  He 
appeared  to  entreat  her ;  she  shook  her  head  vigorously, 
and  put  his  hand  down  from  her  rein  with  a  firm  but 
not  unkind  briskness.  She  gave  him  a  smile  through 
her  tears,  and  he  rode  on  with  her. 

The  young  men  followed.     It  had  begun  to  snow. 


68  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 


IV. 

THE  Eev.  George  Maurice's  difficulty  with  the  vigi 
lance  committee  at  Laughing  Valley  City  was  the  climax 
of  the  ill  will  which  began  to  show  itself  against  him  in 
the  town  a  month  or  two  after  his  arrival  there  from  his 
last  parish,  in  Dakota.  He  had  failed  with  these  people 
not  merely  because  he  lacked  the  cardinal  virtue  of  the 
West,  adaptability,  though  certainly  he  was  tactless 
enough,  and  would  often  rasp  the  sensibilities  of  those 
whom  he  would  willingly  have  pleased.  Nor  had  he 
failed  altogether  because  he  was  arbitrary  and  dictatorial ; 
no  doubt  his  congregation  could  have  borne  that  cheer 
fully  from  a  man  they  respected — indeed  it  is  not  certain 
that  they  might  not  have  liked  him  the  better  for  being  a 
bit  of  a  bully. 

If  they  had  been  asked  to  lay  a  finger  on  the  source  of 
their  dissatisfaction  with  him,  they  would  probably  have 
had  to  own  that  they  couldn't.  However,  that  was  not  a 
thing  to  make  them  less  dissatisfied.  In  fact,  he  was  one 
of  the  men  to  whom  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  attribute 
something  forgivable — like  a  definite  sin.  Perhaps  it  was 
his  indefinite  weakness  that  was  unpardonable. 

One  might  say,  for  example,  as  certain  people  did, 
that  he  was  not  too  scrupulous  about  money  matters ;  but 
it  could  not  truthfully  be  said  that  he  was  unscrupulous. 
It  might  be  alleged  that  he  did  light  things,  unbecoming 
his  cloth  ;  but  his  "behaviour  was  never  clearly  unseemly. 
He  could  easily  be  proved  lacking  in  consideration  for 
others,  or,  if  one  liked, — and  there  were  usually  several 
who  liked, — for  his  daughter ;  yet  when  one  would  say 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  69 

"  selfish,"  the  remembrance  of  a  reckless  act  of  generosity 
would  recall  itself,  or  the  recollection  of  the  strain  of  self- 
sacrifice  in  him,  declaring  itself  in  acts  that  enslaved  to 
him  those  whom  they  helped,  and  endeared  him  to  a  fol 
lowing  among  the  young  of  all  his  parishes ;  and  condem 
nation  was  laid  by  the  heels. 

Maurice  did  not  pretend  to  be  perfect.  If  he  had 
made  any  such  pretense  he  would,  for  instance,  have  felt 
bound  to  bury  Carstarphen  and  Telfner  when  they  died 
of  smallpox,  which  had  been  brought  to  Laughing  Valley 
City  by  a  party  of  Chinamen.  Like  other  miners,  the 
men  had  lived  in  disregard  of  every  sanitary  precaution ; 
no  measures  had  been  taken  for  disinfecting  the  cabin  in 
which  they  had  died,  and  to  go  to  it  to  read  the 
burial  service  over  them  and  then  to  accompany  their 
bodies  to  the  grave,  on  the  side  of  Carbonate  Mountain, 
two  miles  from  town,  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  serious 
risk.  It  was  unfortunate  that  those  duties  of  a  minister 
of  the  gospel,  which,  in  personal  experience  of  them,  one 
must  of  course  qualify  a  trifle,  should  be  so  simply  con 
ceived  by  the  friends  of  the  dead  men.  His  refusal  to 
perform  the  last  office  for  the  men,  though  made  with 
the  proper  reluctance  and  regret,  and  reasoned  cogently, 
was  taken  extremly  ill. 

The  miners  who  had  come  to  ask  his  services  as  the 
only  minister  in  town  "  cursed  him  out,"  as  they  after 
wards  told  the  indignation  meeting.  It  was  at  this  meet 
ing  that  the  resolutions  were  adopted,  in  which  the  word 
"  coward  "  occurred  six  times  exclusive  of  the  indignant 
preamble. 

The  resolutions,  which,  after  the  received  custom,  gave 
him  twenty-four  hours  to  leave  town,  expressly  excepted 


YO  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

his  daughter ;  and  the  ladies  of  the  place  had  arranged 
among  themselves  to  keep  her  by  them,  and  to  look  after 
her,  with  the  purpose  of  sending  her  after  her  father,  if 
she  should  desire  'to  go,  when  he  should  be  settled  some 
where.  Carelessly  enough,  this  plan  had  reckoned  with 
out  Dorothy's  energetic  will,  it  was  found,  when  the  time 
came ;  and  they  let  her  go  with  the  band  that  escorted 
him  to  the  edge  of  the  town  because  she  very  quietly 
would  have  it  so,  not  imagining  it  necessary  to  extract  a 
promise  from  her  to  go  no  further. 

Dick  Messiter  (a  young  man  whom  the  ladies  knew  to 
have  a  mill-owning  father  somewhere  in  Massachusetts, 
and  whose  occupation  at  Laughing  Valley  City  was  that 
of  Superintendent  of  Cincinnati  Mining  Co.  No.  3)  had 
offered  to  go  along  and  look  after  her ;  and  in  spite  of 
the  lamentable  occasion  of  the  association  of  the  two 
young  people  under  these  conditions,  the  circumstance 
"gratified  that  dumb  novelist,  or  perhaps  it  is  merely  ro 
mancer,  which  seems  to  lurk  in  every  woman's  breast.  It 
struck  the  ladies  of  the  town  as  a  beautiful  situation,  and 
they  would  have  been  the  last  to  interpose  an  obstacle  to 
the  crisis  which  is  somewhere  towards  the  tops  of  every 
situation. 

They  trembled  appropriately  for  the  clergyman  when 
he  was  led  out  in  the  midst  of  the  shouting  mob,  and 
they  exchanged  the  observation  that  they  ought  not  to 
have  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  letting  her  go,  when  they 
saw  her  riding  among  the  noisiest  of  them.  It  would 
have  been  hard  if  they  could  not  assuage  their  remorse 
by  the  suggestive  spectacle  of  Dick  and  the  girl  riding 
side  by  side  up  the  hill.  If  one  looked  at  the  matter 
from  this  standpoint,  it  was  clear  that  the  mob  could  not 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  71 

be  too  noisy;  and  it  was  even  to  be  hoped  that,  in  a 
harmless  way,  it  might  prove  obstreperous :  it  would  be  a 
pretty  opportunity  for  Dick. 

The  trail  over  which  Philip  and  Cutter  followed  the 
three  riders  clambered  difficultly  along  the  walls  of  Eed 
Rock  Canon  ;  or  sometimes  it  would  dip  into  it,  or  wander 
quite  out  of  it,  and  take  its  way  along  the  table-land 
above.  Bayles's  Park,  where  they  were  to  find  the  train 
for  Maverick,  and  where  the  railway  terminated  for  the 
present,  lay  in  one  of  those  green  and  sheltered  hollows, 
in  the  penetralia  of  the  hills,  known  to  Colorado  vocabu 
laries  as  a  park.  For  a  good  part  of  the  year,  the  parks — 
which  are  a  kind  of  small  paradise  to  the  traveller  who 
comes  down  into  them  out  of  the  mountains — keep  a 
spring  festival,  and  if  any  one  supposes  that  there  are 
hill-gnomes,  he  must  be  sure  that  it  is  on  these  fresh  and 
flower-starred  lawns  that  they  hold  their  revels.  At  all 
events,  the  hills  water  and  refresh  them,  as  if  they  would 
keep  their  ball-room  bright — or  perhaps  it  is  with  the 
hospitable  thought  of  maintaining  one  guest-chamber 
among  their  unfriendly  rocks ;  and  every  mountain  trav 
eller  knows  how  to  praise  the  shelter  it  offers. 

Bayles's  Park  was  still  well-nigh  a  two  hours'  journey 
forward,  however,  and  the  snow  had  begun  to  fly  more 
thickly.  The  noiseless  coming  of  the  storms  in  which  men 
and  beasts  are  lost  in  these  mountains  is  their  most  awful 
effect :  one  could  die  more  easily,  one  feels,  in  the  worst 
riot  of  tempest.  The  snow  fell  silently  about  them  as 
they  rode,  piling  the  folds  of  their  greatcoats,  and  their 
ponies'  flanks,  with  its  stealthy  increase.  The  wind, 
which  blindingly  blew  the  flakes  in  their  faces,  was  smit 
ten  soundless  by  the  solid  curtain  of  white  through  which 


Y2  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

it  passed  to  reach  them.  The  world  was  filled  with  snow 
and  silence.  It  had  grown  very  cold. 

There  are  often  such  snow-flurries  in  the  mountains, 
and  then,  in  a  few  moments,  sunshine  again.  Philip  and 
Cutter  consulted  with  each  other,  and  did  not  believe  it 
would  last ;  but  they  agreed  that  it  should  make  no  differ 
ence  if  it  did.  They  could  not  turn  back  and  leave  those 
in  advance  to  take  their  chances,  even  if  Philip  was  ready 
to  give  up  the  wedding.  So  people  will  agree  while  their 
feet  are  still  warm ;  and  they  pushed  on  doggedly,  as  the 
fall  grew  heavier. 

The  telegraph  line  followed  the  trail,  save  when,- at 
rare  times,  led  on  stubby  iron  poles,  it  would  go  forward, 
for  the  sake  of  a  short  cut,  in  a  dizzy  run  over  the  rocks 
jutting  from  the  cliff  above  them.  Where  the  poles  were 
set  along  their  path  they  were  higher,  and  when  the  snow 
was  most  blinding  it  was  still  easy  to  make  out  the  road 
by  them.  But  the  poles  were  presently  less  plain,  and 
the  sullen  murmur  of  the  Chepita,  rising  steadily  from 
the  chasm  which  opened  at  the  outer  edge  of  the  trail,  a 
measureless  void,  warned  them  to  use  their  eyes  before 
they  used  the  reins  with  which  they  would  sometimes 
guide  the  horses. 

"  Look  sharp,  there,  Deed  ! "  shouted  Cutter,  sud 
denly  ;  and  Philip  withheld  his  pony  in  time  to  save  him 
self  from  the  gulf. 

The  pony  backed  in  terror,  and  when  Philip  got  him 
started  forward  again,  Cutter's  horse  refused  to  budge. 
Cutter  alighted,  and  led  him.  The  animal  came  forward 
reluctantly,  cowering  at  each  step,  and  eying  the  way  be 
fore  him  doubtfully.  The  snow-fall  appeared  suddenly 
to  grow  more  dense,  and  the  river,  down  at  the  bottom  of 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  Y3 

the  caflon,  which  had  marched  with  them  until  now  to  a 
soothing  melody,  seemed  suddenly  to  shake  itself  free 
from  the  silence  of  which  it  had  been  part  and  to  give 
forth  a  muffled  roar  and  shout.. 

Cutter  looked  back  for  a^sight  of  Philip's  face.  He 
could  touch  his  pony's  nose,  but  the  rider  was  a  vague 
spectre.  Cutter  gave  a  prolonged  shout. 

"  Hello-o-o-o-o ! " 

They  were  not  three  paces  from  each  other,  but  he 
could  not  be  sure  whether  the  answer  was  an  echo  or 
Philip's  voice.  He  pressed  his  pony  back  against  Philip's. 
They  caught  at  each  other's  hands  as  the  animals  came 
together. 

"  I  was  afraid  of  this,"  said  Cutter,  hoarsely,  with  the 
fear  which  we  find  after  the  event. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Philip. 

The  frightful  huddle  and  scurry  of  the  big  flakes 
came  between  them,  as  they  peered  in  each  other's  faces, 
and  their  voices  reached  each  other  dully  out  of  the  pall 
of  snow. 

"  Think  of  those  people ! "  said  Philip,  after  a  mo 
ment,  in  which  they  let  their  horses  stand.  "  Think  of 
that  girl !  " 

"  Hellish ! "  muttered  Cutter,  who  had  had  no  com 
ment  for  the  business  while  they  watched  it. 

"  Come  on ! "  said  Philip,  briefly,  and  Cutter  under 
stood.  It  was  true ;  they  must  find  them.  And  at  the 
moment  they  heard  a  vague  sound,  like  voices,  in  ad 
vance. 

Philip's  pony  would  not  move  quickly  enough,  and  he 
threw  himself  off,  and  jerked  him  forward. 

"  You  heard  ?  "  he  asked  of  Cutter. 


74  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Yes." 

They  pressed  forward,  and  presently  came  upon  the 
group  halted  in  the  middle  of  the  trail,  bending  over  the 
girl,  who  had  been  taken  from  her  horse,  and  was  being 
plied  with  brandy  by  the  'tall  young  man.  Her  father, 
who  was  rubbing  her  ears  with  snow,  would  raise  his  eyes 
from  time  to  time  desperately,  frowning  and  blinking  at 
the  storm. 

She  had  not  fainted.  She  was  merely  exhausted  by 
the  storm,  and  numbed  by  the  cold.  The  spirits  seemed 
to  restore  her.  She  looked  up  at  sound  of  the  shout  of 
greeting  with  which  Philip  and  Cutter  made  their 
presence  known,  and  descried  their  figures. 

"  My  horse,"  she  murmured  to  Messiter,  who  was 
stooping  over  her ;  and  he  and  her  father  raised  her  up, 
and  set  her  on  her  pony,  while  Philip  put  himself  at  the 
animal's  head. 

Philip  shouted  something  in  Messiter's  ear  as  he  came 
around  in  front  of  her  animal  to  take  his  own  by  the  rein. 

"  To  be  sure  ! "  answered  the  girl's  cavalier.  "  Hadn't 
thought  of  it." 

Messiter  did  not  catch  what  Philip  added,  but  he  re 
plied  to  the  question  he  guessed  in  his  voice  :  "  Yes ;  near 
here.  I  know  the  place  well  enough  when  the  weather 
hasn't  got  the  blind  staggers.  Blast  the  snow ! "  he 
shouted,  rubbing  his  eyebrows  and  mustache,  and  mopping 
the  little  segment  of  face  which  showed  between  his  high 
muffler  and  low-fitting  cap.  "  Brown's  Cafion,  don't  they 
call  it  ?  " 

He  was  near  enough  to  see  Philip's  nod. 

"A  cut  in  the  rock,  and  the  cave  just  inside  of  it? 
Beyond  the  Fifth  Cascade  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  75 

"  That's  the  place,"  said  Philip. 

They  set  forward  for  it  without  delay,  each  leading 
his  own  horse,  except  that  Philip  took  Messiter's  besides 
his  own,  while  Messiter  led  the  girl's.  Cutter,  who  did 
not  know  the  cave,  brought  ujy^the  rear  with  the  clergy 
man,  who  made  no  attempt  to  'hide  from  him  his  disap 
proval  of  the  storm  and  of  the  entire  situation.  Cutter 
had  never  heard  such  pleasant-hearted,  even  mellow 
grumbling.  The  man  had  a  charm  of  manner  which  one 
felt  through  the  snow  itself.  In  front,  the  two  young 
men  discussed  the  whereabouts  of  the  cleft  in  the  rocks 
(which  was  known  as  a  canon,  for  no  very  good  reason), 
and  of  the  cave.  About  the  place  itself  Philip  knew  best, 
having  bunked  in  the  cave  for  a  night,  when  he  had  come 
over  the  pass  the  year  before,  on  his  way  to  Pifion ;  but 
his  companion  was  much  more  familiar  with  the  trail. 

They  went  peeringly  forward,  dragging  the  trembling 
horses.  There  was  always  an  uncertain  moment  after 
they  had  lost  sight  of  one  telegraph  pole,  and  before  they 
could  make  out  the  next;  and  at  these  times  they  felt 
cautiously  along  the  rocky  wall  that  soared  into  the  air 
on  the  inside  of  the  trail,  and  did  not  venture  toward  the 
outer  edge'.  The  horses  tried  each  step  inquiringly  before 
taking  it,  and  the  two  men  in  the  lead,  advancing  into 
the  unknown  with  such  courage  as  they  might,  would 
often  pause  to  take  counsel  with  each  other's  ignorance 
and  helplessness.  It  was  impossible  to  say  where  any 
thing  was  in  this  night  of  snow ;  all  of  their  world  was  that 
next  step  which  they  could  see  ;  and  that  step  might  always 
plunge  them  into  the  world  which  no  man  has  seen  at  any 
time.  Somehow  the  cold  seemed  to  numb  the  thought, 
by  sympathy  with  the  bodily  pain  and  bewilderment 


76  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

which  intense  cold  brings.  The  girl,  who  had  not  their 
resource  of  motion,  was  crying  in  silent  agony  from  it, 
Philip  saw,  when  he  made  way  at  a  turn  in  the  path  for  the 
young  man  to  lead  her  horse  by  him ;  and  he  pressed  his 
flask  of  whisky  into  her  hands.  They  were  so  cold,  and  the 
men's  mittens  she  had  drawn  over  her  gloves  so  clumsy, 
that  she  almost  dropped  it ;  Philip  caught  it  up  as  it 
slipped  from  her,  and,  shouting  to  his  companion  to  hold 
on,  asked  her  by  a  motion  to  raise  her  veil,  and,  pulling 
himself  by  a  jutting  boulder  to  her  level,  put  the  flask  to 
her  lips.  She  was  very  pale,  and  the  smile  she  extorted 
from  herself  for  thanks  was  pitiful. 

Sometimes  the  trail  turned  sharp  corners,  and  once 
they  found  themselves  at  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  and 
the  cry  of  the  river  leaped  up  to  them  through  the  storm 
with  a  sudden  loudness.  The  two  in  advance  shuddered 
back  from  the  sound,  clutching  at  each  other,  and  feeling 
<  blindly  through  the  swirl  toward  the  cliff  on  which  their 
lives  hung.  Shouldered  firmly  against  the  wall  once  more, 
they  paused  for  a  weary  and  discouraged  moment  to  shake 
off  the  snow,  and  to  take  heart  for  another  venture  into 
the  awful  mystery  of  white. 

The  death  which  might  lie  before  them  was  certain 
where-  they  stood,  from  snow  and  cold,  and  at  last  they 
dared  question  the  wall  again  with  advancing  hands. 
Philip  was  sure  the  canon  and  its  cave  could  not  be  far. 
But  the  storm  created  its  own  far  and  near.  Ten  paces 
were  far :  one  might  have  to  lie  down  and  give  up  the 
fight  at  the  end  of  them ;  the  second  step  was  not  near : 
one  might  never  take  it.  The  wind  had  risen  to  a  gale, 
the  cold  searched  their  veins,  and  their  limbs  began  to 
answer  their  wills  uncertainly.  It  was  time  they  found 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  77 

shelter.  One  of  the  horses  stumbled,  and  could  not  rise 
until  Cutter  felt  his  way  back  along  the  bridle-rein  and 
helped  him  up ;  but  when  he  tugged  at  the  reins  again 
the  pony  would  not  move. 

"  We  shall  have  to  give  the  poor  beast  up,  I'm  afraid," 
he  said.  Philip  went  back,  and  spoke  a  heartening  word 
to  the  pony, — it  had  belonged  to  him  in  the  mountains, — 
and  the  animal  came  along  for  a  few  paces,  and  stopped 
again,  when  it  became  necessary  to  repeat  the  action. 

It  was  all  done  in  silence.  For  half  an  hour  no  one 
had  spoken,  when  Philip  shouted,  "  The  Cascade !  "  and 
as  they  halted  to  listen,  there  reached  their  ears  remotely, 
as  if  from  a  great  distance,  the  steady,  down-beating  pour 
of  a  waterfall.  The  sound  triumphed  over  the  clamoring 
river  and  the  loud-breathing  wind,  though  it  seemed  so 
far  away ;  and  hope  blessed  them  again. 

When  the  wall  opened  at  last  to  their  weary  hands, 
and  discovered  the  cafion  and,  a  moment  later,  the  cave, 
they  had  just  strength  enough  left  among  them  to  get 
the  girl  from  her  horse  and  to  set  her  within  the  cavern. 
They  sank  about  her  exhausted  when  they  saw  her  safe, 
and  for  a  long  time  lay  powerless  to  help  her  or  one 
another. 

Philip  was  the  first  to  find  his  feet. 

"  Here,  Cutter,  stop  that !  Wake  up ! "  he  cried. 
Cutter  was  dozing  in  the  dangerous  sleep  in  which  men 
die  from  cold.  He  shook  him  violently. 

"  Let  me  alone  ! "  grunted  Cutter ;  but  Philip  caught 
him  up,  and  seated  him  against  one  of  the  walls  of  the 
cave. 

"  Wake  up  !     Do  you  hear  ?  " 

"Oh,  come  off !  "   exclaimed  Cutter,  drowsily. 


78  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  See  here,  do  you  want  your  head  banged  against 
these  rocks  ?  They're  sharp,  I  warn  you  !  " 

Cutter  started  awake.  He  cast  a  listless  glance  over 
the  cavern,  which  was  high  and  spacious,  with  boulders 
scattered  about  the  floor.  The  roof  and  sides  were 
toothed  and  rutted,  and  showed  everywhere  sharp  points 
of  rock,  at  sight  of  which  Cutter  rubbed  his  head  rue 
fully  and,  having  found  a  smile,  knew  himself  again. 
"  Got  a  match?"  he  asked. 

"  No ;  but  I  think  you  have." 

"  Fact."  He  fumbled  for  the  silver  match-case,  with 
the  figure  of  the  humorous  young  demon  atop,  which 
was  one  of  the  relics  of  his  Eastern  career  as  a  young 
man  about  town. 

"Good!"  said  Philip,  energetically.  "Then  we'll 
have  a  fire !  There's  a  sort  of  room  just  back  round  the 
curve  in  the  rock  there,  unless  I  am  out  of  my  bearings, 
and  a  thing  Hicks  and  Baxter  used  to  call  a  fireplace 
when  they  were  living  here  on  a  grub-stake.  You'll  find 
some  wood.  Get  up  a  fire  if  you  can,  while  I  look  after 
this  poor  girl.  Sing  out  when  you're  ready,  and  I'll  fetch 
her  back." 

He  spoke  rapidly  and  urgently,  and  Cutter  got  him 
self  on  his  feet,  and  made  his  way  with  stumbling  steps 
in  the  direction  of  the  rear  of  the  cavern.  Philip  watched 
him  anxiously  a  moment ;  he  had  asked  him  to  go,  to 
give  him  a  reason  for  bestirring  himself,  but  he  feared 
he  would  drop  asleep  again  while  he  went  about  the 
kindling  of  the  fire.  But  there  was  no  time  for  concern 
about  Cutter.  He  stood  upon  his  own  stiff  legs  with  a 
groan,  and  made  his  way  over  to  where  the  girl  sat 
propped  against  the  wall  of  the  cave. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  79 

Her  head  was  drooped  upon  her  breast,  but  she  was 
not  asleep,  and  she  looked  up  with  a  lifeless  smile  as 
Philip  bent  over  her.  He  made  her  take  another  long 
pull  at  his  flask,  and  then  snatched  off  the  heavy  mittens 
which  Messiter  had  given  up  to  her,  and,  peeling  off  the 
thin  gloves  underneath,  fell  to  chafing  her  hands  as  brisk 
ly  as  his  own  benumbed  arms  would  let  him. 

After  a  moment,  when  she  began  to  look  about  her, 
he  ran  over  to  the  prostrate  figure  of  the  clergyman,  and 
shook  him  alive,  and  then  punched  up  Messiter.  When 
they  had  found  their  feet,  they  came  over  and  helped 
him ;  and  the  girl  was  able  after  a  time  to  reward  their 
common  efforts  with  a  look  into  which  the  heart  and 
courage  had  a  little  returned.  She  began  to  seem  again 
something  like  the  girl  who  had  cast  off  the  restraining 
hand  on  her  rein  and  galloped  up  the  slope  above  Laugh 
ing  Valley  City  after  her  father ;  and  when  they  judged 
it  safe,  they  bore  her  in  among  them  to  the  fire  which 
Cutter  had  cried  out  awaited  them.  The  ears  of  one  or 
two  of  them  had  been  nipped ;  but  none  of  their  limbs 
had  been  frozen,  and,  with  the  fire  in  sight,  the  men  be 
gan  to  dance  about,  flinging  their  arms  wildly,  and  beat 
ing  their  hands  upon  their  legs  in  search  of  their  lost  cir 
culation  and  suppleness  of  joint. 

She  laughed  at  their  crazy  motions,  where  she  sat  cud 
dled  in  all  the  wraps  they  could  muster  for  her  in  front 
of  Cutter's  roaring  fire,  and  they  smiled  back  at  her 
amusement. 

"  Whew ! "  shouted  her  tall  cavalier,  taking  off  his 
heavy  gloves  and  blowing  on  his  fingers.  "  We  forgot  to 
shut  the  front  door  after  us.  Don't  you  people  feel  a 
draft?" 


80  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

She  gave  him  a  mirthful  nod.  "  That's  the  etiquette 
of  cave-mouths,"  she  said  ;  "  you  must  always  leave  them 
on  the  latch.  It's  in  case  we  should  have  visitors.  Oh, 
think,"  she  cried,  in  sudden  terror,  "  if  there  should  be 
any  one  else  out  in  this  storm !  " 

"  Heaven  help  them,"  said  Philip,  "  or  show  them  the 
way  to  something  like  this." 

"  Yes,"  said  Cutter,  drawing  a  musing  sigh,  as  he  set 
tled  himself  by  the  fire.  "  I  don't  know  how  it  was  with 
you,  Deed  ;  but  there  weren't  many  minutes  of  stand  up 
and  take  it  left  in  me  when  we  found  this." 

"Yes;  it's  very  nice  we're  here,"  the  girl  said 
thoughtfully  to  Philip,  who  had  come  over  to  her  corner, 
and  was  standing  above  her,  asking  if  there  was  anything 
that  could  be  done  to  make  her  more  comfortable.  "  It 
was  awful ! "  She  paused  for  a  long  moment  in  thought 
of  it.  "  How  did  you  happen  to  know  this  place  ?  Only 
think  if  you  hadn't  come  up  with  us ! " 

Philip  perceived  that  she  did  not  know  that  he  knew 
— that  they  knew.  He  pulled  himself  up,  with  an  inward 
start.  He  saw  that  what  he  had  been  about  to  say  would 
have  presumed  on  their  common  acquaintance  with  the 
scene  on  the  hillside  above  Laughing  Valley.  It  was  evi 
dent  that  she  had  not  seen  them  as  she  swept  by  their 
post  of  observation  on  her  flight  to  join  her  father. 

"  Oh,  your  friend  would  have  remembered  it.  It  was 
he  who  piloted  us  here — Mr. —  " 

"  Messiter.  Mr.  Eichard  Messiter  to  the  minister  who 
baptized  him ;  to  everybody  else,  just  Dick." 

"  I  should  never  have  found  it  without  Mr.  Messiter." 

"  And  we  should  never  have  found  it  without  Mr. —  " 
She  hesitated,  in  her  turn,  as  she  looked  up  into  his  face. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  81 

"  Deed,"  supplied  Philip. 

"Deed?"  she  repeated.  "Oh,"  she  added  thought 
fully,  "  I  wonder  if  you  know  a  Mr.  Deed  who — "  Philip 
waited  for  her  to  finish.  "  Why,  he  once  took  me  quite 
informally  out  of  a  burning  building.  Our  school  was 
on  fire.  It  was  in  a  village, — a  Pennsylvania  village, — 
and  there  were  no  engines.  The  boys  from  the  other 
boarding-school  across  the  way  formed  lines  and  passed 
buckets.  It  was  at  night.  He  happened  to  see  me  first 
at  a  window  from  his  place  in  the  line,  and  ran  in  and 
carried  me  down-stairs.  The  fire,  just  for  that  one  fright 
ful  moment  at  the  window,  was  worse  even  than  the  storm 
we've  escaped,  I  think.  Wasn't  it  fine  of — of  that  other 
Mr.  Deed,  Mr.  Deed  ?  " 

"  It  was  fine,"  said  Philip,  looking  down  into  her 
glowing  face.  "  I'm  hoping  I  can  prove  kinship  with 
him.  What  was  his  Christian  name?" 

"  A  rather  odd  name — Jasper." 

Philip  started.  "  Did  all  that  happen  in  a  village 
called  Aylesford  ?  " 

"  Yes.     How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  "  laughed  Philip,  uncertainly.     He  bit  his  lip. 

"  Is  it  some  one  you  know,  then  ?    How  very  nice ! " 

"Yes,"  said  Philip,  "it  is  some  one  I  know — my 
brother." 

Dorothy  exclaimed  her  surprise.  "Then  you  must 
have  heard  my  story  long  ago.  I  thought  I  was  telling 
you  something  new." 

"  It  was  new,"  returned  Philip,  without  animation. 

"  Of  course.  I  ought  to  know  that  he  wouldn't  say 
how  he  had  done  an  heroic  thing.  It  wouldn't  be  like 
him." 


82  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  No,"  assented  Philip,  "  it  wouldn't  be  like  him."  It 
was  true  that  Jasper  was  not  a  man  to  exploit  himself. 
He  recognized  the  trait  in  him  on  reflection,  without  cor 
diality.  It  Avas  part  of  his  propriety.  He  would  long 
aso  have  said  to  himself  that  to  boast  was  crude. 

o 

"But  how  very  odd  that  you  should  be  his  brother!" 
cried  Dorothy,  returning  to  her  original  surprise.  She 
drew  the  saddle-blanket  with  which  Philip  had  covered 
her  feet  closer  about  her. 

Philip  burlesqued  his  thanks,  and,  with  a  little  "  Oh  !  " 
of  appreciation,  her  face  melted  into  a  smile.  "  I  didn't 
mean  —  "  she  began  imploringly.  She  joined  in  his  laugh. 
"  Do  you  call  that  fair  ?  "  she  asked. 

"What?"  inquired  he. 

"  Entrapping  me  like  that." 

"Have  I  said  anything?"  retorted  Philip,  unblush- 


"  No  ;  but  you've  made  me.  Or  perhaps  I  said  it  my 
self,  but  the  meaning  is  yours." 

"  Must  I  mean  what  you  say  ?  " 

She  pretended  to  muse.  "You  mustn't  say  what  I 
mean,"  she  answered,  looking  up  at  him  with  a  smile  that 
enchanted  him.  The  name  Maurice  suddenly  detached 
itself,  as  he  met  her  glance,  from  the  haze  of  memory  in 
which  it  had  been  floating  since  he  had  heard  it.  Since 
she  had  mentioned  Jasper  he  had  been  casting  back  for 
the  origin  of  this  memory.  He  recognized  it  now  with  a 
start.  It  was  from  Jasper  himself  that  he  had  heard  it. 
A  myriad  memories  went  buzzing  in  his  head.  Was  it 
possible  ?  He  recalled  a  school-boy  passion  of  Jasper's,  of 
which  he  had  known  a  very  little,  —  as  little  as  younger 
brothers,  just  learning  to  smoke,  are  thought  fitted  to  hear 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  83 

of  an  elder  brother's  love  affairs, — and  had  guessed  a  great 
deal ;  as  much  as  such  brothers  commonly  guess  from 
slender  premises.  He  had  never  seen  the  girl ;  it  had  ail 
happened  while  Jasper  was  away  at  school.  But  he  re 
membered  the  name  now.  It  was  Maurice. 

A  pang  without  meaning  or  reason  passed  through 
him  as  he  glanced  at  her  again.  She  and  Jasper  had 
once  been  lovers,  then.  She  had  permitted  him  to  know 
her  in  the  intimacy — the  sacred  intimacy,  the  intimate 
strangeness  of  betrothal.  The  thought  gave  him  some 
thing  like  a  physical  shock.  With  his  knowledge  of  his 
brother's  falsity  fresh  in  his  mind,  the  idea  filled  him  with 
an  empty,  retrospective  anger  for  her.  He  felt  as  if  she 
had  been  profaned,  and  he  believed  his  pang  to  be  wholly 
for  her. 

In  the  silence  that  had  fallen  between  them  while  he 
pursued  these  thoughts,  he  discovered  himself  to  be  study 
ing  the  face  which  she  turned,  now,  half  towards  him 
and  half  towards  the  firelight.  There  was  certainly  a 
nameless  expression  in  it  which  made  the  thought  of  any 
homage  to  it  lower  than  the  finest  peculiarly  intolerable. 
Philip  fancied  that  he  liked  the  sweet  seriousness  of  her 
face  even  better  than  its  prettiness ;  but  he  was  not  sure, 
a  moment  later,  that  he  did  not  like  its  unconsciousness 
better  than  either.  She  had  less  than  the  usual  American 
pallor,  and  in  her  cheeks  two  bright  spots  of  colour,  which 
had  fled  before  the  exposure  through  which  she  had 
passed,  began  to  show  themselves  unassertively. 

Her  gaze  had  a  certain  charming  freedom,  and  in  all 
her  motions  she  was  singularly  unafraid ;  but  this  con 
sisted  with  a  remote  touch  of  reserve  which  never  left  her, 
and  which  was  constantly  causing  one  to  rejoice  the  more 


84  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

in  a  confidence  that  was  in  every  expression  of  itself  a  new 
gift  to  the  observer,  because,  in  its  openest  moments,  it 
seemed  always  to  withhold  a  part  of  itself.  In  the  same 
way  the  sober  look  which  slept  upon  the  verge  of  her 
lightest  glances  enriched  and  gave  a  special  value  to  the 
dancing  light  which  would  come  into  her  eyes  at  any 
challenge  of  her  attention.  The  eyes  themselves  had  been 
meant  to  be  grey,  apparently  ;  but  one  of  them  had  rather 
agreeably  failed  on  the  way  to  greyness,  and  in  some  lights 
had  a  fleeting  tinge  of  brown.  A  little  more  pronounced, 
and  it  might  have  been  a  blemish ;  as  it  was,  it  formed  a 
part  of  her  indescribable  charm.  Something  in  the  model 
ling  of  her  cheeks  left  the  full  view  of  her  face  a  trifle 
disappointing,  perhaps;  but  this  was  because  her  clear  and 
almost  perfect  profile  promised  so  much. 

As  she  sat  in  the  half  darkness,  her  face  thrown  into 
relief,  by  the  fire,  she  was  certainly  extraordinarily  pretty. 
Her  shapely  chin  was  well  in  the  air,  her  little  mouth — she 
was  in  all  ways  made  upon  a  little  pattern — was  pursed  in 
meditation,  and  her  straight,  sensitive  nose  was  cut  with 
particular  clearness  against  the  light.  It  was  not  her  nose 
which  disappointed  in  her  full  face;  it  was  incontro- 
vertibly  very  good.  Her  hair,  which  had  taken  several 
tumbles  under  the  late  stress,  showed  that  shade  of  brown 
which  you  felt  like  thanking  her  for  combining  with  her 
eyes  and  complexion,  and  had,  as  well,  that  pretty  crink- 
liness,  and  excellent  habit  of  waving  or  curling  at  unex 
pected  moments,  which  one  knows. 

The  pained  thought  which  had  drawn  Philip's  musing 
glance  to  her  was  being  replaced  by  an  untroubled  pleas 
ure  in  her  beauty  as  he  was  roused  from  bis  preoccupation 
by  Cutter's  voice  inquiring  of  her  from  across  the  fire : 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  85 

"  Cozy  ?  "  Their  common  plight  seemed  to  beget  a  species 
of  respectful  intimacy  among  them ;  and  they  all  spoke  as 
if  they  had  always  known  one  another. 

"Very,"  assented  she.  Dorothy  Maurice  had  been 
born  in  the  South,  of  a  Southern  mother,  and  her  voice 
had  the  melody  and  vibrant  sweetness  of  the  voice  of 
Southern  women,  without  the  accent  and  pronunciation 
which  it  would  be  difficult  to  prove  altogether  desirable, 
but  which  is  pretty,  too,  if  you  like.  "  We  might  almost 
be  happy  here  for  a  week  if  we  could  keep  warm  so  long, 
and  if  we  could  find  something  to  eat.  Don't  you  think, 
Mr.—" 

"  Cutter,"  he  said ;  and  her  eyes  met  Philip's  with  an 
other  smile. 

"  Don't  you  think  we  might  find  a  larder  somewhere 
about,  if  we  looked  ?  It  isn't  possible  that  the  miners  who 
left  this  wood  for  our  fire  would  stop  at  that." 

Cutter  glanced  at  Philip  interrogatively,  and  at  her 
hint  they  explored.  Houses  wander  dissolutely  from 
street  to  street  in  Colorado  towns,  in  wheeled  pursuit  of 
the  real-estate  market,  but  provisions  which  have  once 
found  their  way  on  the  backs  of  burros  to  a  prospector's 
home  in  the  mountains  are  less  vagrant.  After  a  sum 
mer's  work  a  prospector  would  be  in  a  poor  way  who 
had  not  something  more  valuable  to  load  on  his  pack- 
animals  than  the  jerked  beef,  coffee,  and  canned  fruits 
and  vegetables  upon  which  the  young  men  presently 
came. 

"  Uncommonly  white  of  them  to  leave  so  much 
canned  hospitality  on  the  shelf  for  us,  .wasn't  it  ? "  said 
Cutter,  exhibiting  their  discoveries. 

"Dear  me!     All  that!"  she  said.     "I  should  think 


86  BENEFITS   FOEGOT. 

so !  They  must  be  very  nice  fellows.  Did  you  say  you 
knew  them,  Mr.  Deed  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  as  one  knows  men  who  take  you  in  for  the 
night,  and  do  the  handsome  thing  for  the  wayworn  trav 
eller.  I  spent  a  night  here  when  I  first  came  over  the 
Pass.  They  were  working  a  claim  a  little  way  on  down 
the  trail  as  I  passed  them  on  horseback.  It  was  rather 
late  in  the  afternoon,  and  when  I  asked  my  way  of  them 
they  told  me  I'd  better  let  them  bunk  me  for  the  night. 
I'm  afraid  they  didn't  leave  these  good  things  here  with 
us  in  view,  quite ;  but  if  they  had  known  we  were  coming 
along  it  would  have  been  like  them.  They  will  be  back 
in  the  spring,  I  suppose,  to  begin  work  again.  I  hope 
they  won't  miss  what  we  shall  have  to  borrow  from  them." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  they  won't  mind,"  said  the  clergyman, 
who  had  been  silent  for  some  time,  while  he  thawed  him 
self  out  by  the  fire.  "  Politeness  is  rather  wasted  on  the 
rough  people  one  meets  in  this  region,  I  find." 

"  I  don't  know  that,  sir,"  said  Messiter ;  and  Philip, 
who  was  about  to  protest,  conceived  in  time  that  the 
clergyman  was  not  without  reason  for  his  feeling,  and 
forbore. 

"  Ah,  well,  I  do,  you  know,"  returned  Maurice,  cour 
teously.  "An  odd  business  that,  Dick,  wasn't  it?"  he 
said  with  an  uneasy  humour.  "  Were  you  by  chance  in 
the  place  they  call  Laughing  Valley  City  this  morning  ?  " 
he  asked  suddenly  of  Philip.  The  intention  to  ascertain, 
if  possible,  how  much  these  two  strangers  knew  of  the 
affair  on  the  hillside  was  obvious ;  but  Philip  responded 
as  if  he  had  not  perceived  it. 

"  We  came  through  Laughing  Valley  City  in  the 
morning  from  Piflon,"  he  said. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  87 

"  Ah,"  said  Maurice.  "  Then  we  passed  you  very 
likely  on  the  road  without  observing  you." 

"  I  think  very  likely,"  answered  Philip,  disingenuously. 
"  We  stopped  for  a  while  once,  a  little  out  of  the  road." 
He  saw  the  girl's  rising  flush  and  wished  to  spare  her, 
even  if  the  clergyman  did  not  care  to  be  spared. 

Philip  saw  Miss  Maurice  draw  a  sigh  of  relief  as  he 
made  this  reply;  and  she  rose  at  once,  and  set  about 
making  coffee — or  such  coffee  as  was  possible  without 
milk.  The  sugar  they  had. 

"  Any  tobacco  ?  "  asked  Cutter,  as  Philip  came  over 
his  way. 

Philip  offered  him  a  bag  from  which  the  best  of  the 
contents  had  been  spilled  in  fighting  the  storm,  and 
knelt  beside  him  to  strike  a  match.  He  seated  himself 
near  him,  next  the  fire.  "  Mighty  poor  business,  this,"  he 
said  as  the  tobacco  began  to  glow  in  their  pipe-bowls,  and 
the  smoke  made  a  homelike  fragrance  in  the  air.  "  I 
shall  never  get  to  Maverick  in  time  for  my  father's  little 
affair." 

Cutter  smiled.     "  Why,  you  monstrous  ingrate ! " 

"  Oh,  of  course  I'm  thankful  it's  no  worse ;  but  when 
a  thing's  no  worse,  who  would  be  so  stingy  with  his 
wishes  as  not  to  want  it  better  ?  Plain  luck  isn't  enough 
for  a  man.  He's  got  to  have  luck  glace." 

Cutter  roared  until  the  echoes  answered  him,  and  they 
all  looked  his  way.  "  Man,  man  ! "  he  shouted,  "  you 
don't  want  luck  any  more  glace  than  to-day's,  I  hope." 

"  What  amuses  Mr.  Cutter?"  asked  Dorothy,  coming 
toward  them  unfolding  a  ragged  red  table-cloth  which 
she  had  found,  and  which  she  was  about  to  spread  for 
them  on  a  square  of  rock. 


88  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  One  on  me,"  said  Philip.  "  He  wants  to  know  if  it's 
cold  enough  for  me.  Mayn't  I  help  you,  Miss  Maurice  ?  " 

She  let  him  endeavour  as  much  as  he  would  in  the 
helpless  helping  which  young  men  are  accustomed  to 
offer  young  women  in  such  things,  and  which  is  doubt 
less  so  much  better  for  being  so  little  effective. 

As  they  spread  the  cloth  between  them  on  the  rock, 
Dorothy  used  the  opportunity  of  her  position  opposite 
him  to  observe  him  attentively  for  the  first  time.  She 
thought  him  less  handsome  than  Jasper,  after  a  moment's 
inventory.  She  immediately  added  that  he  was  better- 
looking  than  she  had  fancied  in  her  casual  glances.  His 
broad-shouldered  vigour  had  its  own  value,  and  she  did  it 
justice  in  recalling  Jasper's  effect  of  shapeliness.  Phil 
ip's  robust  build  wanted  symmetry,  and  his  strong  face, 
tanned  by  exposure  to  the  weather,  and  undeniably  a  little 
freckled,  had  the  look  of  force  rather  than  beauty.  It 
was  not  upon  a  pattern,  and  failed  at  important  points ; 
but  it  was  in  no  danger  of  confusion  with  other  faces  of 
equally  simple  and  rugged  cast.  His  grey-blue  eyes,  de 
rived  from  his  father,  had  the  quiet  look  of  power ;  they 
fronted  her  squarely,  when  he  caught  her  look,  in  an 
amused  and  kindly  twinkle.  Less  gentle  things  looked 
out  of  their  depths  unaggressively.  With  his  wide,  full 
forehead,  the  large  mould  of  his  face,  the  sensitive  nos 
trils,  and  firm  under  jaw,  he  had  the  look,  Dorothy 
thought  to  herself,  of  a  man  who  can  do  and  make  do. 

She  reflected  that  he  seemed  much  less  than  Jasper  to 
have  himself  on  his  conscience.  One  could  hardly  use 
his  long  stride  to  whom  it  had  ever  occurred  to  wonder 
how  he  might  look  in  walking ;  and  he  would  certainly 
have  made  sure,  after  their  fight  with  the  storm,  of  his 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  89 

hair  and  the  sailor  knot  straying  out  of  sight  under  the 
collar  of  his  flannel  shirt,  if  he  had  felt  the  responsibility 
about  his  appearance  which  she  remembered  in  the  Mr. 
Deed  she  had  known.  The  gods  playing  at  bowls  would 
be  a  sight  valued  out  of  proportion  to  the  consideration 
in  which  the  game  is  held,  and  Dorothy  found  a  peculiar 
entertainment  for  her  thoughts  in  the  spectacle  of  all 
this  lustiness  and  vigour  spreading  a  table-cloth  with  her. 

She  smiled  when  the  idea  occurred  to  her,  and  as  they 
failed  for  the  third  time  to  lay  the  cloth  true  between 
them,  she  caught  the  ragged  thing  out  of  his  hands,  with 
a  righteous  hesitation  about  her  enjoyment,  and  began 
asking  him  questions  about  Jasper,  as  she  went  on  to  lay 
the  cloth  and  to  set  the  table  herself.  Philip  answered 
mechanically.  The  thought  that  this  sweet  girl  had  once 
been  Jasper's  affianced  wife  became  more  tormenting, 
more  shameful,  as  he  perceived  her  charm.  He  caught 
himself  staring  almost  rudely  at  her  in  the  frequent 
pauses  of  their  talk,  abandoning  himself  to  speculation 
about  the  affair.  How  could  she  ever  have  cared  for 
him?  He  had  saved  her  life;  had  she  not  just  said  it? 
That  would  be  a  permanent  fact  for  such  a  girl,  a  reason 
for  a  lifelong  gratitude.  But,  besides,  everybody  liked 
Jasper  until  they  knew  him  very  well.  Some  of  them 
liked  him  afterwards.  It  was  one  of  his  talents — making 
himself  liked.  She  seemed  still  to  like  him  herself;  all 
that  she  said  implied  it.  Was  it  a  lover's  quarrel  that  had 
parted  them,  perhaps?  Did  she  still  love  him?  He 
smiled  to  himself  at  his  concern.  All  human  contingen 
cies  were  absurdly  remote.  He  knew  very  well  that  they 
might  never  leave  the  cave  alive, 

They  hung  shawls  and  some  tattered  blankets,  found 


90  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

in  the  bunks,  at  the  crevice  and  angles  of  the  rocks,  for 
her,  when  they  were  seated  at  last  around  the  flat  bulk  of 
rock  which  she  had  divined  to  have  served  as  the  miners' 
table;  and  they  spent  themselves  in  entreaty  of  her  to 
discover  or  invent  another  draft  which  they  might  shield 
her  from,  until  Philip  suddenly  bethought  him  of  the 
horses,  which  they  had  been  obliged  to  abandon  at  the 
cave-mouth.  In  the  mortal  exhaustion  which  had  over 
come  them  all  when  they  found  shelter,  they  had  known 
nothing  better  to  do  for  them.  It  occurred  to  Philip 
that  perhaps  they  could  be  got  into  the  cave. 

They  thought  it  a  joke  when  he  proposed  it.  Bait 
when  they  saw  him  to  be  serious,  Cutter  and  Messiter 
volunteered  to  venture  out  with  him;  and  after  what 
seemed  a  long  time,  they  returned,  covered  with  snow, 
having  found  all  but  one  of  the  ponies,  and  got  them  into 
the  outer  cave.  Their  whinnies  came  to  them  from  there 
piteously ;  and  Dorothy  was  for  trying  if  they  would  eat 
jerked  beef  or  dried  peaches.  She  went  out  with  Philip 
when  their  little  picnic  meal  was  done,  and  brushed  the 
snow  from  their  flanks  with  a  clothes-brush  she  produced 
from  the  bag  that  was  strapped  on  the  saddle  of  her  own 
pony. 

"  "What  would  be  the  horse  for  coffee  ?  "  she  asked ; 
and  at  Philip's  "  Water,  I'm  afraid,"  she  drew  a  sigh. 
"  And  we  haven't  any  more  than  what  we  found  in  that 
little  cup  of  a  spring.  You  see,  Mr.  Deed,  we  must  get 
away  from  here  as  soon  as  we  can,  for  the  horses'  sake,  if 
not  for  our  own.  I'm  afraid  they  wouldn't  care  for  the 
week  I  was  proposing,  even  if  we  should.  Poor  fellows !  " 
she  murmured,  as  they  set  up  their  long-drawn  moan 
again. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  91 

They  all  rose  when  she  returned  to  the  inner  cavern, 
and  made  a  soft  seat  for  her  with  blankets  on  the  flat 
rock  next  the  fire.  Dick  Messiter  and  Cutter  were  clearing 
away  the  traces  of  the  meal  they  had  just  eaten  on  it. 
They  took  turns  in  fanning  from  her  face  the  smoke 
which  would  sometimes  be  driven  back  down  the  chimney 
into  her  face  by  the  wind  still  whirling  at  its  worst  with 
out,  and  they  piled  the  wood  lavishly  on  the  fire  for  her 
comfort,  until,  with  a  practical  instinct,  she  went  over  to 
the  corner  in  which  the  wood  was,  and  pronounced 
against  the  reckless  use  of  their  scanty  store. 

When  she  was  seated  again  on  the  dais  of  rock,  which 
raised  her  a  little  above  her  court,  who,  ready  to  do  her 
bidding,  sat  or  lay  about  her,  coiled  into  such  ease  as  they 
could  manage  on  the  rocky  floor,  she  looked  a  smallish 
sort  of  monarch;  and  humouring  their  attribution  of 
despotic  power  to  her,  she  queened  it  with  a  gentle  gaiety 
among  them,  issuing  her  commands  in  the  royal  plural, 
and  admonishing  our  good  Earl  of  Deed,  and  our  right 
worthy  servant  Sir  Lenox  Cutter,  with  benignant  severity. 
When  Dick  was  beckoned  imperiously  to  her  side,  he 
knelt  in  humbleness,  and,  with  a  tap  of  her  riding-crop 
on  his  shoulders,  she  said,  with  an  air  she  knew,  "  Sir,  I 
dub  thee  Knight,"  and  cried,  "  Eise,  Sir  Knight  Dick  !" 

Her  unconsciousness  of  Messiter's  devotion  was  a  pretty 
thing  to  see.  Her  unconsciousness,  as  I  have  said,  was 
one  of  her  charms  :  it  was  pleasant  to  observe  her  modest 
diffidence  of  all  that  touched  the  thought  of  self-valua 
tion,  and  to  perceive  the  impossibility  of  her  ever  com 
ing  to  feel  the  world's  thought  of  her.  But  it  was 
especially  nice  to  see  how  she  would  not  know  the  love 
that  followed  all  her  motions  with  pursuing  eyes,  and 


92  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

yet  how  she  could  give  herself  so  unthinkingly  to  him 
in  every  word. 

Philip,  because  he  would  occasionally  catch  the  famil 
iar  glances  that  often  passed  between  them,  judged  them 
lovers,  with  a  man's  haste;  but  a  more  instructed  eye 
would  perhaps  have  seen  how  the  divine  unconstraint  of 
her  attitude  towards  him  might  very  well  be  a  secret  pain 
to  Messiter ;  for  sometimes  a  light  would  come  into  his 
eyes  by  which  one  might  almost  guess  how  he  might  be 
hating  her  for  liking  him  so  well. 


V. 

MARGAKET  had  not  seen  Deed  since  the  morning  he 
had  flung  himself  from  the  house.  She  knew  nothing  of 
him  save  what  she  had  lately  learned,  that  he  had  been 
called  to  Leadville  the  same  afternoon  to  argue  a  case, 
and  that  he  had  gone.  The  information  of  the  town 
regarding  the  sudden  abandonment  of  the  wedding  was 
equally  scanty. 

All  that  day,  until  far  into  the  afternoon,  Margaret  sat 
in  Beatrice's  little  parlour,  waiting  his  return  with  patient 
certainty.  Tears  were  easy  while  he  was  in  trouble ;  but 
she  could  not  weep  for  herself.  She  sat  watching  the 
long  stretch  of  road  leading  from  the  house  down  past  the 
church  in  which  the  wedding  was  set  to  take  place  at  half 
past  four.  A  desolate,  hunted  look  crept  gradually  into 
her  stony  gaze,  as  the  cuckoo-clock  in  the  hall  told  off 
the  half  hours,  and  he  did  not  come.  She  rose  quickly, 
biting  her  lip  to  repress  the  tears  that  began  to  flow  readily 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  93 

enough,  as  Beatrice  came  in  at  four  o'clock.  Beatrice's 
face  trembled  with  her  own  emotion ;  her  eyes  were  wet 
and  red,  as  if  she  had  been  crying  ever  since  Margaret 
had  last  seen  her,  when  she  had  looked  in  at  the  slam 
ming  of  the  door  behind  Deed,  to  ask  what  had  happened. 
Margaret  caught  Beatrice's  caressing  arm  away. 

"Let  me  go,"  she  said  hoarsely.  "You  can't  help 
me,"  she  added,  in  a  hard,  uneven  tone.  "  No  one  can 
help  me."  She  choked  back  a  sob.  "  Oh,  can't  you  see 
that — "  A  surge  of  heart-sickness  rose  in  her  throat. 
She  turned  from  Beatrice's  pitying  face,  and  ran  up  the 
stairs. 

There  were  very  few  wedding-garments  to  put  away ; 
but  one  may  drop  as  many  or  as  scalding  tears  as  one  may 
wish  on  a  very  small  spray  of  orange  blossoms. 

It  all  seemed  so  strange,  so  impossible,  so  trivially  out 
side  reason  and  experience.  The  orange  rind  on  which 
one  slips  and  breaks  a  limb,  the  elevator  that  happened  to 
be  here  and  not  there,  the  train  that  was  on  the  other 
track — how  motiveless,  how  needless,  what  a  littleness  of 
fortuity !  She  could  not  explain  how  it  had  happened. 
It  was  like  a  great  grief  which  simply  comes  upon  one, 
which  befalls  without  our  agency.  She  had  spoken — she 
lied  to  him,  if  any  one  liked  the  word  better — in  the 
irresistible  utterance  of  a  feeling  stronger  than  herself. 
That  he  should  do  what  he  proposed  was  unthinkable, 
intolerable  :  she  could  not  let  him  blight  his  life  like  that. 
For  good  or  ill  she  had  to  speak ;  and  now,  though  the 
event  itself  was  much  the  most  anguishing  thing  she  had 
known,  the  only  part  of  it  she  would  have  done  otherwise, 
if  it  had  been  to  do  again,  would  have  been  to  avoid  the 
lie,  somehow. 


94:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

She  would  not  allow  Beatrice  to  blame  him  when  she 
let  her  into  her  bedchamber  next  morning.  The  shock 
had  affected  her  physically,  and  she  had  yielded  to  Bea 
trice's  earlier  insistence  from  outside  the  door  at  half  past 
seven,  and  remained  in  bed.  It  might  have  been  possible 
to  listen  to  accusations  of  him  if  her  own  heart  had  gone 
out  yearningly  to  him  in  forgiveness.  But  she  was  fright 
ened  by  the  hardness  against  him  which  she  felt  to  be 
growing  in  her.  Something  almost  like  rancour  began  to 
prosper  side  by  side  with  her  love  :  it  seemed  to  have  war 
rant  in  the  tenderness  which  no  event  could  really  dimin 
ish — perhaps  it  grew  out  of  it. 

If  he  would,  no  one  could  venture  to  say  what  the 
desecration  of  a  woman's  inmost  life  must  be  through  the 
intimacies,  the  familiarities,  the  endearments  of  a  betrothal 
which  comes  to  naught.  The  exchanged  amenities,  so 
infinitely  right  and  sweet  because  marriage  follows,  be 
come  each  a  separate  indignity  and  horror  when  it  does 
not.  To  Margaret,  who  took  all  matters  over-seriously ; 
whose  training  had  erected  barriers  against  these  things, 
each  of  which  had  been  broken  down  with  a  pleasant  pain 
of  its  own ';  who  cherished,  who  almost  loved  her  reserves, 
there  was  a  new  and  subtler  misery  behind  every  pain 
which  could  have  tormented  other  women  in  like  trouble. 
To  cast  a  glance,  the  most  doubtful  and  fleeting,  back 
upon  this  one  romance  of  a  life  curiously  lacking,  hitherto, 
in  all  emollient  experience  of  this  sort,  tore  her  with 
nameless  pains.  She  felt  as  if  she  should  like  never  to 
see  a  man  again. 

She  had  given  up,  the  day  before,  all  thought  of  his 
return,  she  fancied.  But  when  Beatrice  entered  with  the 
morning  mail  she  stretched  forth  her  hand  with  the  im- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  95 

pulsive  certainty  that  there  must  be  a  letter  from  him. 
When  Beatrice  reluctantly  shook  her  head,  she  perceived 
that  she  had  secretly  believed  that  he  must  still  come  back. 
It  was  because  the  thing  was  still  too  incredible.  Did 
men,  then,  belong  to  a  different  race  ?  Was  there  one 
loyalty  for  them,  and  another  for  women?  Was  there 
another  tenderness,  another  forbearance,  another  love? 
She  had  never  had  a  brother ;  Deed  was  the  only  man  she 
had  ever  imagined  qualities  for ;  she  did  not  know  about 
men — were  they  like  this  ?  Could  it  be  that  they  knew 
how  to  justify  such  things  to  themselves — that  there 
might  be  cruelties  indigenous  to  the  conscience  of  men, 
which  women  must  not  blame  because  men  could  not 
know  them  to  be  such  ?  Perhaps  to  know  all  the  wrong 
there  may  be  in  a  wrong,  one  must  have  the  gift  to  guess 
all  the  poignancy  of  its  consequences ;  and  she  saw  that 
no  man  could  really  understand  her  humiliation. 

It  was  the  lot  of  a  woman  to  be  chosen,  distinguished, 
called  apart ;  made  to  believe  that  for  one  man  she  was 
different  from  all  the  rest.  It  was  only  the  extremity  of 
that  distinction  that  could  measure  the  shame  of  the 
credulity  cast  back  in  her  face,  the  innocent  faith  become 
a  thing  to  bite  the  lip  and  to  flush  with  pain  at  thought 
of.  She  did  not  lessen  her  own  offence.  Coming  hard 
upon  Jasper's  perfidy,  she  saw  how  it  must  have  mad 
dened  him.  She  loved  him,  and,  imagining  his  suffer 
ing,  pitied  him  from  her  heart.  But  all  her  smarting 
pride,  the  selfhood  wounded  to  death,  cried  out  against 
the  cruelty  of  this  desertion  on  their  wedding-day.  Cow 
ering  under  the  indignity  which  seemed  to  have  stripped 
her  of  self-respect,  she  could  not  be  sure  of  the  validity 
of  any  judgment  of  the  miserable  woman  she  had  be- 
7 


96  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

come.  His  act  had  beaten  her  down.  She  was  sickly, 
unsure  of  herself,  of  life,  of  what  she  must  think ;  but  she 
knew  the  dumb  resentment  that  grew  slowly  in  her  for  the 
helpless  bitterness  against  him  that  it  was.  She  loved 
him,  she  supposed  that  she  must  always  love  him ;  but 
the  injuriousness  of  the  thing  he  had  done  stifled  in 
these  first  hours  every  gentle  thought.  When  the  mem 
ory  of  it  was  hottest  in  her,  she  would  set  her  teeth  in 
still  wrath. 

There  was  another  thing.  It  would  seem  as  if  the 
most  straightforward  of  women  must  have,  somewhere  in 
their  depths,  a  kind  of  sense  for  indirection,  which  they 
can  never  quite  forgive  men  for  not  understanding  in 
them.  Margaret  had  wished  him  to  believe  her ;  she  felt 
that  his  whole  future  and  hers  had  hung  upon  his  credit 
ing  her  lie.  But  this  was,  unexplainably,  a  very  differ 
ent  thing  from  liking  it  in  him  that  he  should  have  be 
lieved  her.  Deed  had  not  closed  the  door  behind  him 
before  she  had  said  to  herself  indignantly  that  he  should 
have  known  her  better. 

There  were  moments  when  it  all  seemed  different, 
when  she  compassionated  his  situation,  condemned  her 
self  as  the  cause  of  it,  and  accused  herself  passionately 
for  accusing  him.  He  would  be  suffering  as  well ;  not  in 
her  way  at  all,  but  worse,  perhaps,  because  it  was  impos 
sible  to  know  how  bad  suffering  might  be  which  was 
outside  one's  comprehension.  He  must  be  thinking 
what  she  had  said  the  final  faithlessness.  At  these 
times  she  would  say  to  herself  that  she  could  not  wish 
him  to  think  it  less.  If  it  had  been  what  it  seemed,  it 
was  as  bad  as  possible,  and  she  would  have  liked  to  have 
him  hate  her. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  97 

But  when  echoes  of  the  scandal  stirred  up  in  the  town 
by  his  abandonment  of  her  began  to  come  to  her  ears,  the 
springs  of  tenderness  dried  in  her.  The  two  daily  papers 
published  at  Maverick — having  the  fear  of  Deed  before 
them  —  had  reported  the  barren  facts  with  what  they 
meant  for  a  picturesque  reserve,  and  speculated  about  the 
affair  with  what  seemed  to  them  a  self-denying  decency. 
Beatrice  kept  the  papers  from  Margaret,  of  course;  but 
her  boy  turned  innocent  busybody,  and  brought  a  copy  of 
one  of  them  to  her  in  furtherance  of  an  enterprise  of  make- 
believe  which  Margaret  had  joined  him  in.  Her  eye 
caught  the  audacious  head-line,  and  before  she  knew  it 
she  had  read  a  dozen  lines. 

She  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  in  shame;  alone 
with  the  child  she  blushed  as  hotly  as  if  all  the  world 
looked  on.  In  fact,  it  did  see  her  :  that  was  her  feeling. 

She  shed  no  tears  then ;  but  when  Beatrice  came  in 
at  twilight  to  light  the  lamp,  she  saw  that  she  had  been 
crying.  It  was  not  precisely  for  the  comments  of  the 
newspaper.  She  had  been  thinking  of  the  lines  of  a  poem : 

Be  good  to  me !    Though  all  the  world  united 

Should  bend  its  powers  to  gird  my  youth  with  pain, 
Still  might  I  fly  to  thee,  dear,  and  be  righted — 

But  if  thou  wrong' st  me,  where  shall  I  complain  f 
I  am  the  dove  a  random  shot  surprises, 

That  from  her  flight  she  droppeth  quivering, 
And  in  the  deadly  arrow  recognizes 

A  blood-wet  feather — once  in  her  own  wing. 

After  Beatrice,  Margaret  found  it  easiest  in  these  first 
days  to  see  Dr.  Ernfield,  whom  Mrs.  Vertner  had  called  in 
immediately.  Margaret  had  liked  Dr.  Ernfield  long  before; 
and  she  liked  him  still  better  in  observing  gratefully  the 


98  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

devices  of  kindness  by  which  he  referred  her  prostration 
solely  to  physical  causes,  and  the  delicacy  with  which  he 
implied  that  she  had  had  no  history  previous  to  the  mo 
ment  of  any  of  his  calls.  They  had  been  on  almost  in 
timate  terms  before  her  wedding-day ;  and  she  was  grate 
ful  for  his  attitude  in  proportion  as  she  perceived  the 
difficulty  to  which  he  must  be  put  to  maintain  it. 

He  had  been  interesting  to  her,  during  the  month  she 
had  passed  in  Maverick  before  her  wedding-day,  not 
merely  as  a  man, — though  he  was  an  unusually  interest 
ing  man, — but  because  of  his  situation.  He  had  left  a 
prosperous  practice  in  Boston  to  come  West  in  search  -of 
health.  He  was  still  under  thirty-five,  and  had  won  his 
success  while  very  young  by  making  a  specialty  of  diseases 
of  the  nervous  system ;  but  he  had  paid  for  it,  so  to  say, 
with  himself,  and  he  was  in  consumption.  Beatrice,  who 
had  known  him  in  Boston,  was  very  fond  of  him,  and  in 
the  first  month  of  Margaret's  stay  he  had  been  often  at 
the  house.  It  was  the  only  house  where  he  felt  at  home ; 
he  was  practising  his  profession  in  Maverick  to  avoid  the 
stagnation  of  idleness,  but  he  really  knew  no  other  family, 
and  he  had  found  that  to  have  known  people  even  slightly 
in  the  East  is  a  tie  when  one  comes  to  meet  them  unex 
pectedly  under  the  shadow  of  the  Continental  Divide. 
Beatrice,  on  her  part,  was  accustomed  to  say  that  he  was 
very  nice.  She  perhaps  meant  by  this  that  he  had  the 
gift  of  helpfulness,  of  sympathy,  which,  perhaps,  is  not 
especially  common  among  men.  Margaret  had  thought 
she  saw  how  this  faculty,  comfortable  as  it  may  be  to  a 
physician's  patients, — not  to  go  into  the  question  of  his 
friends, — might  be  ruinous  to  a  sensitively  made  physician ; 
she  had  perceived  that  the  excess  of  his  sympathy  with 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  99 

the  work  he  had  done  before  he  came  to  Maverick  had 
been  merely  by  way  of  devouring  him. 

It  was  pitiful  to  remark  how  his  disease  had  him  in 
its  clutch.  The  sinewy  lines  of  his  big  body,  designed 
plainly  for  the  use  of  a  strong  man,  had  begun  to  waste 
before  the  attacks  of  his  malady.  It  was  observable, 
however,  that  he  was  still  strong  of  limb  ;  and  the  look 
of  his  face — kept  alive  by  his  ardent  and  commanding 
glance,  and  hidden,  for  the  most  part,  by  a  thick  brown 
beard — was  scarcely  the  look  of  a  sick  man. 

It  had  been  a  pleasure  to  Margaret  to  see  this  sturdy 
fellow — who  had  the  effect,  in  spite  of  his  weakness,  of 
confident  strength — ramp  up  and  down  Beatrice's  little 
parlour,  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  expounding  his 
theories  of  health  and  disease — theories  which  fascinated 
Margaret  by  sinking  instinctively  for  the  moral  spring 
underlying  all  large  theories  of  health ;  or  anathematizing 
the  whole  system  of  living  which  gives  us  the  damsel 
known  to  discussion  as  the  "  American  Girl,"  a  creature 
whose  tenseness  might  not  be  half  bad,  Ernfield  owned, 
for  the  spectator,  but  was  death  to  the  girl.  And  then  it 
had  been  still  pleasanter  to  hear  him  counter  this  with 
the  story  of  nervously  wrecked  young  lives,  which  Mar 
garet  saw,  around  the  corners  of  his  modesty,  he  had  won 
back  to  the  normal  way  of  life.  He  never  spoke  of  having 
cured  anybody;  he  would  sometimes  own  that  he  had 
taught  a  person  here  and  there  how  to  live.  It  had 
seemed  to  Margaret  that  he  had  accomplished  this  by 
transfusing  a  portion  of  his  own  life  into  each  of  these 
persons :  for  it  was  obvious  that  such  patients  as  these 
must  always  have  drawn  their  new  life,  in  great  degree, 
from  his  life ;  that — a  cure  being  in  such  cases  so  much 


100  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

an  affair  of  sympathetic  understanding,  of  a  brisk,  urgent, 
imperious  individuality — they  had  lived  at  his  expense. 

The  thought  of  this  strong,  fine  fellow,  who  had  given 
his  young  manhood  to  the  business  of  reinstating  others 
in  life,  doomed  to  a  death  against  the  halting  wretched 
ness  of  which  no  hindrance  could  be  opposed,  unless  it 
existed  in  the  air  of  Lone  Creek  County,  had  been  too 
painful  to  Margaret  for  endurance. 

Margaret's  frank  liking  for  him,  and  the  gentleness  of 
her  manner  towards  him,  springing  from  the  compassion 
for  his  situation  to  which  she  could  not  give  other  expres 
sion,  were  perhaps  part  of  her  charm  for  him ;  but  that 
which  had  really  drawn  him  to  her  was  the  constant 
charm  residing  in  her  sincerity,  her  simplicity,  and  di 
rectness,  in  her  goodness,  in  her  irresistible  need  to  meet 
all  questions  in  their  highest  phase, — above  all,  in  her 
gentle  womanliness.  In  the  three  weeks  that  had  passed 
after  her  arrival,  before  Deed  and  she  were  ready  to  lay 
themselves  open  to  the  town's  comment  by  announcing 
their  approaching  wedding,  Ernfield  had  had  time — in 
ignorance  of  her  betrothal,  and  wholly  without  Margaret's 
suspicion  of  what  was  happening— to  fall  deeply,  misera 
bly  in  love  with  her. 

It  was  not  precisely  his  fault ;  but  his  position,  when 
he  ascertained  it,  gave  him.  the  sense  of  moral  turpitude 
he  would  have  felt  if  he  had  allowed  himself  to  fall  in 
love  with  a  married  woman. 

It  was  just  as  well,  he  said  to  himself;  he  had  de 
served  it.  A  man  who,  in  his  condition,  indulged  the 
thought  of  connecting  his  future  with  another's  for 
longer  than  one  of  those  radiant  moments  of  monstrous 
and  baseless  hope  that  must  visit  even  the  hopeless,  was 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  101 

properly  condemned  to  such  an  awakening.  This  reflec 
tion  should  have  made  it  easy  to  think  of  Margaret's  wed 
ding  with  equanimity ;  and  certainly  should  have  silenced 
the  thrill  with  which  he  heard  of  Deed's  desertion  of  her 
on  their  wedding-day.  Its  effect,  however,  was  to  fill  him, 
before  the  day,  with  a  gloomy  reluctance  in  her  presence 
and  a  fear  of  meeting  her  honest  eyes ;  and  after  it,  to 
shame  and  daunt  him  with  a  clear  vision  of  the  meanness 
of  the  hope  that  began  to  live  tremblingly  in  him. 

He  writhed  under  her  approval  of  what  he  saw  she 
took  for  his  tact  and  delicacy,  when  he  was  forced,  after 
the  event,  to  visit  her  in  his  professional  capacity.  He 
felt  like  a  scoundrel  when  he  heard  from  Beatrice  that 
for  the  present  she  could  bring  herself  to  see  no  one  but 
him  and  her,  that  she  could  not  bear  that  any  eyes  less 
friendly  and  familiar  should  look  upon  her  grief  in  these 
first  days.  Her  trust  humiliated  and  abased  him.  He 
wanted  to  tell  her  what  a  scamp  he  was.  He  could  have 
blushed  at  sight  of  the  humble  light  of  thankfulness  she 
turned  on  him  from  her  weary  eyes,  as  he  constructed  a 
theory  about  her  indisposition  which  referred  it  to  purely 
physical  causes.  To  see  how  her  pride  smarted  under  this 
blow  in  every  fibre,  to  see  how  she  was  ashamed  of  being 
ashamed,  and  yet  not  abashed  to  let  him  perceive  it,  be 
came  intolerable.  On  the  second  day,  in  the  mere  neces 
sity  of  putting  an  end  to  it,  he  ordered  fresh  air  for  her : 
he  told  her  that  she  must  go  about. 

Beatrice  went  about  the  house  on  her  daily  duties 
with  a  grieving  face.  Margaret's  position  pained  her  to 
the  heart.  She  could  understand  how  she  might  have 
partly  brought  it  on  herself,  with  the  noblest  motives ; 
but  nothing  could  even  shadowily  justify  what  Deed  had 


102  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

done.  She  called  his  act  by  the  hardest  names  to  herself, 
when  Margaret  would  not  hear  her  denunciations.  It 
was  small  comfort  to  talk  to  her  husband. 

"  What  are  you  worrying  about  ? "  he  would  say. 
"  You  ought  to  be  throwing  up  your  cap  on  any  reasona 
ble  theory  of  friendship.  It's  an  escape  for  both  of  them. 
You  don't  think  they  would  have  been  happy,  do  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  returned  his  wife,  frankly.  "  Don't 
you?" 

"  I  think,"  said  Vertner,  ambiguously,  "  if  they  had 
not  been, — especially  Deed,: — it  would  not  have  been  for 
lack  of  hard  trying — especially  Miss  Derwenter's." 

"  You  think  she  might  have  tried  too  hard,"  suggested 
Beatrice,  quickly.  "  Yes,"  she  owned,  after  a  moment's 
meditation ;  "  Margaret  has  that  way.  Perhaps  she 
rather — insists." 

"  She  doesn't  know  quite  when  to  let  up,"  said  Vertner, 
in  the  tone  of  admission.  His  wife  had  to  smile.  "  It's 
a  virtue — knowing  when  to  spare." 

"  And  you  think  Margaret  hasn't  it  ?  "  asked  Beatrice, 
as  anxiously  as  if  she  did  not  feel  that  she  entirely  under 
stood  Margaret's  sweetly  intentioned  severity,  and  as  if 
she  had  not  reasoned  with  herself,  and  with  Margaret, 
about  it. 

"  Well,"  owned  Vertner,  "  I  think  she  might  consider 
it  not  quite  moral." 

"  No,"  said  Beatrice,  vaguely,  as  she  helped  him  on 
with  his  coat  (she  had  followed  him  out  into  the  hallway 
to  see  him  off  for  the  day) ;  "  perhaps  not." 

"And  Deed  wouldn't  really  enjoy  that  after  a  bit," 
said  Vertner,  as  he  adjusted  the  fur  collar  of  his  coat. 
"  He  can  take  things  hard  himself,  and  he  does,  but  not 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  103 

in  her  way,  and  he  doesn't  take  everything  hard.  There's 
a  sort  of  sense  of  perspective  about  Deed :  that's  his 
humour.  He  has  his  varioloid  moments." 

"  Yes,"  rejoined  Beatrice  in  sad  musing ;  "  and  Mar 
garet  hasn't.  I  know  that.  All  her  moments  are  acute. 
She  goes  conscientiously  through  the  whole  disease, 
whether  it's  a  question  of  a  pin  or  an  elephant." 

"  Well,  perhaps  you  can  see,  then,  if  you've  got  to  that 
point,  how  Miss  Derwenter  would  be  the  very  best  wife  in 
the  world  for  a  man  who  takes  things  in  bulk — in  Deed's 
whole-souled,  passionate,  hearty  way.  There's  nothing 
equal  to  a  gingerly,  conscious,  penny-wise  way  of  looking 
at  things  for  a  wife  for  such  a  man." 

"  Ned,  you  sha'n't  say  such  things  of  Margaret ! " 

"  Oh,  Margaret's  all  right,"  said  Vertner,  in  a  tone  of 
conviction,  as  he  put  his  hand  on  the  knob.  He  really 
liked  her  when  she  would  let  him.  "  It  isn't  her  fault 
that  Deed  isn't  built  to  appreciate  her.  She  could  make 
plenty  of  men  ecstatically  happy." 

"What  kind  of  men?" 

"  Well,  my  kind,"  returned  her  husband,  audaciously. 
"  I  should  always  be  ecstatically  happy,  any  way,  you 
know;  and  all  that  she  could  do  for  me  would  be  so 
much  clear  gain." 

After  these  talks  with  her  husband,  nothing  but  a 
long  conversation  with  Margaret  could  put  Beatrice  right 
again.  She  enjoyed  the  play  of  her  husband's  mind,  of 
course ;  but  there  were  occasions  for  seriousness,  and  this 
was  one  of  them.  She  found  Margaret  serious  enough ; 
yet  even  she  would  smile  dismally  sometimes  at  the 
thought  of  certain  contrasts.  The  concern  which  she 
had  given  herself  during  the  month  preceding  her  wed- 


104  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

ing-day  (the  mouth  in  which  she  had  made  acquaintance 
with  Maverick)  as  to  whether  she  should  be  able  to  like 
the  West,  struck  her,  for  example,  in  her  present  forlorn 
case,  as  food  for  sad  amusement.  She  had  not  been  afraid 
she  should  not  get  along,  as  the  phrase  is :  she  was  ac 
customed  to  managing  so  much  as  that  for  herself  in  all 
sorts  of  queer  places.  But  it  had  occurred  to  her  that, 
even  with  Deed,  the  West,  as  a  permanent  place  of  resi 
dence,  would  leave  a  great  many  needs  in  her  unsatisfied. 
She  had  not  dared  use  adjectives  about  Maverick ;  she 
might  have  to  live  in  it,  and  she  had  the  forethought 
to  avoid  attaching  labels  to  the  place  by  which  even 
her  own  thought  of  it  might  finally  discover  itself  to  be 
bound.  But  it  was  at  least  undeniable  that  Maverick 
lacked  a  public  library.  She  had  thought  that  she  would 
induce  Deed  to  return  to  the  East  when  he  had  won  back 
the  fortune  he  had  lost  the  year  before  he  had  offered 
himself  to  her.  Her  ideal  was  a  suburb  just  out  of  Bos 
ton. 

Nothing  had  taught  her  so  incontrovertibly  the  force 
of  her  love  for  him  as  the  willingness  she  had  found  in 
herself  to  face  for  him  the  contrary  prospect :  for  her 
heart  had  sometimes  sunk  grievously  during  her  first  fort 
night  at  Maverick  ;  and  once,  when  she  thought  she  per 
ceived  from  something  he  said  that  he  was  really  fond  of 
the  West,  that  it  suited  something  in  him, — his  sense  of 
humour,  perhaps ;  she  did  not  know, — her  heart  had  gone 
coweringly  down  into  her  boots.  It  was  at  the  thought  of 
this  terror  that  she  now  indulged  a  smile.  One  troubled 
one's  self  about  such  things  when  one  was  happy ;  it  had 
become  pitifully  indifferent  to  her  whether  Deed  lived  in 
Colorado  or  Patagonia. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  105 

One  of  the  pangs  which  reached  Margaret  from  the 
outside  during  the  first  days  of  her  misery  was  that  which 
she  felt  when  she  learned  that  Philip  had  at  last  arrived 
in  Maverick.  She  had  heard,  in  a  kind  of  dream,  that 
there  were  fears  for  his  safety ;  and  finally,  that  he  was 
given  up  for  lost ;  and  it  had  seemed  at  the  time  only  one 
of  the  thousand  sides  there  appear  to  be  to  even  physical 
pains.  Now  that  she  had  come  out  of  the  stupor  of  suf 
fering  which  had  followed  Deed's  going,  and  began  to  be 
sensible  to  exterior  measures  of  her  trouble,  she  was  sur 
prised  to  find  a  fleeting  wretchedness  in  the  knowledge 
that  Philip  lived,  and  that  his  father,  who  must  have  been 
down  into  the  bitterest  depths  of  grief  for  his  imagined 
loss,  rejoiced  without  her.  For  a  moment  she  thought  of 
Deed  with  untroubled  tenderness.  The  other  feeling  fol 
lowed,  but  the  loving  impulse  taught  her  freshly  the 
unbearable  reach  of  her  loss.  It  went  too  far.  It  cut  too 
deep. 

Vertner  met  the  snow-bound  party  at  the  station.  He 
usually  went  to  the  trains  when  he  was  in  town.  Men  he 
knew  were  often  passing  through  on  their  way  to  Denver 
or  to  the  mountain  towns.  They  gave  him  the  last  word 
about  the  outlook  at  the  newest  mining  camp ;  they  kept 
him  wise  about  the  ups  and  downs  of  older  places.  When 
they  would  stay  overnight  at  Maverick,  he  would  often 
spend  the  evening  at  the  hotel,  losing  a  little  to  them  at 
poker,  and  getting  on  the  inside,  as  he  said,  of  good  things 
in  mines  and  real  estate.  He  brought  Margaret  word  of 
the  arrival  of  Philip. 

"  Mighty  close  shave  those  fellows  had,"  he  said.  "  It 
couldn't  be  done  once  in  a  dozen  times.  I  wouldn't  back 
Charlie  Cozzens  to  do  it,  and  he  knows  every  foot  of  the 


106  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

pass  as  if  it  were  his  Addition."  The  retired  stage- 
driver's  ill  vestment  in  Maverick  real  estate  was  known  as 
"  Cozzens's  Addition."  "  But  they  are  badly  done  up  after 
it.  The  young  lady  went  to  bed." 

"  Young  lady,  Ned  !  "  exclaimed  Beatrice. 

"  Certainly.  Young  lady.  Young  lady  and  father, 
in  fact.  Maiden  slender,  fair,  good-looking — very.  Fa 
ther  a  clergyman,  large,  clever,  manners  until  you  can't 
rest — not  here  purely  as  a  sanitary  measure.  The  young 
lady  really  bore  it  pretty  well.  You  can  see  that  she  was 
prettier  three  days  ago,  but  she  will  pick  up  her  prettiness 
again  at  the  Centropolis  House." 

"  A  clergyman,  Ned  ! " 

"  Well,  not  too  much  of  a  clergyman — not  the  kind 
that  would  worry  the  clerical  Inspector  of  Weights  and 
Measures  with  overweight.  A  good,  practical,  every-day, 
earthly  Christian,  with  a  soul  away  above  the  unrighteous 
nickel — shaped  to  nobler  ends,  like  thousand-dollar  bills ; 
could  make  arrangements  with  soul  to  overlook  some 
things.  Good  fellow ;  I  took  a  kind  of  shine  to  him." 

It  was  one  of  Ned  Vertner's  own  sayings  that  he  was 
a  composite.  He  would  not  have  been  anything  but  the 
"  rustler  "  he  was— dependent  on  the  friendliness  of  for 
tune  to  this  month's  scheme  for  his  next  month's  house 
rent — on  any  account;  but  he  liked  to  remember  how 
easily  and  naturally  he  might  once  have  been  the  conven 
tional  gentleman  whom  he  hated. 

The  Vertners  had  memories  of  the  revolutionary  hero 
with  an  honest  grandfather,  and  the  three  succeeding  gen 
erations  of  Unitarian  ministers  which  make  a  good  family 
in  Berkshire.  There  were  no  better  than  they  in  their 
village ;  and  though  Ned  Vertner,  before  he  was  sixteen, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  107 

disliked  the  people  his  family  knew  in  Boston,  as  he  dis 
liked  the  propriety  of  the  white  picket-fence  in  front  of 
their  white  frame  house  with  green  blinds,  it  was  a  gratifi 
cation  to  him  at  times  to  recall  that  the  good  social  form  of 
his  family  had  existed  for  him  to  refuse.  He  would  not  go 
to  Harvard ;  when  he  was  twenty-three  he  went  to  Chile, 
and  remained  there  five  years,  helping  a  little  to  build  the 
railway  which  his  party  went  out  to  build,  and  learning 
to  live  hard,  to  drink  hard,  and  to  gamble  more  than  he 
could  afford. 

It  was  in  his  fifth  year — when  he  was  coming  down 
with  a  fever  which  went  near  to  finishing  him — that 
Philip  Deed  joined  the  party.  Philip  would  have  said 
to  any  one  who  had  challenged  his  liking  for  Ned  Vert- 
ner,  that  he  liked  him  because  he  had  contributed  what 
effect  there  might  be  in  three  months'  nursing  to  saving  his 
life.  At  all  events,  when  Vertner  was  well  enough  to  sail 
for  home,  they  parted  in  the  relation  of  good  comradeship 
often  existing  in  new  countries  between  men  who  are  of 
no  spiritual  kindred. 

It  was  Deed  who,  at  Philip's  suggestion,  put  Vertner 
in  the  way  of  coming  West  when  he  had  found  Berkshire 
more  impossible  than  he  had  left  it;  and  it  was  Deed 
whose  professional  relations  to  various  adventurous  enter 
prises  opened  the  way  to  Vertner's  first  "  scheme,"  and 
showed  him  his  natural  calling. 

The  impartial  spectator  would  scarcely  have  supposed 
it  a  calling  justifying  marriage ;  but  in  Colorado  rustling 
has  the  recognition  of  one  of  the  liberal  professions,  and 
when  Vertner  had  been  engaged  in  it  a  year  he  worked  a 
pass  as  far  as  Chicago  through  a  friend,  and  returned 
from  Boston,  ten  days  later,  married.  It  was  an  incredi- 


108  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

ble  marriage ;  it  was  the  one  thing,  Philip  told  him,  when 
he  met  Beatrice,  that  he  should  never  forgive  him  for. 
Vertner  admitted  that  he  was  ashamed  of  himself;  no 
one  was  more  conscious  than  he  that  he  was  an  unde 
servedly  lucky  dog. 

"  But  what  could  I  do  ?  "  he  would  say.  "  I  told  her 
it  was  a  shame  and  a  fraud ;  I  gave  her  a  full  resume  of 
my  worthlessness ;  I  told  her  that  if  I  had  ever  been  good 
for  anything  I'd  got  over  it ;  I  told  her  that  my  doings  out 
here  would  turn  a  Public  Gardens  swan  red  with  pure 
shock,  and  would  keep  her  conscience  working  on  horse- 
car  drivers'  hours  every  day.  She  said  she  liked  it. 
Then  I  went  for  the  country,  and  gave  this  section  down 
the  banks.  I  told  her  that  she  would  have  to  breakfast 
on  climate  and  dine  on  scenery ;  that  in  this  altitude  it 
takes  ten  minutes  to  boil  an  egg  soft,  and  that  they  put  on 
beets  the  day  before ;  that  chickens  can't  live,  and  cow's 
milk  is  twelve  cents  a  quart ;  that  pneumonia  rides  around 
on  a  mowing-machine ;  that  she  wouldn't  find  a  library 
in  Maverick ;  that  the  church  was  closed,  and  the  lecture 
bureau  in  the  dry  dock ;  and  that  you  could  take  up  all 
the  civilization  in  the  place  on  a  fork.  She  said  that  none 
of  these  things  mattered,  and  that  something  else  did.  I 
gave  her  up." 

"  Hush,  Ned ! "  she  was  saying  now,  in  response  to 
his  profession  of  liking  for  Maurice ;  "  perhaps  we  can 
get  him  to  stay  with  us  here  for  next  Sunday.  It  is 
months  since  we  had  a  service.  An  Episcopal  clergyman, 
did  you  say  ?  " 

Vertner  nodded,  as  he  cut  a  little  more  steak  for  him 
self  (they  were  at  their  one  o'clock-dinner).  "  I  didn't 
say ;  but  that's  his  rating.  Don't  count  me  in,  though, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  109 

Trix,  on  any  scheme  for  supplying  the  pulpit  of  St. 
John's  in  the  Wilderness.  You  remember  I  took  a  hand 
in  the  last  gospel  boom  in  Maverick.  Invite  him  here,  if 
you  like,  and  get  him  to  preach  for  you  next  Sunday. 
I've  no  objection,  and  he  won't  kick  if  you  make  it  worth 
his  while.  But  leave  me  out.  I  wouldn't  undertake  the 
contract  of  furnishing  a  clergyman  to  that  congregation 
again  for  a  commission  of  fifty  per  cent,  on  his  salary." 

Vertner  laughed  with  enjoyment.  Margaret,  who  had 
found  no  way  of  taking  Vertner  in  the  month  she  had 
spent  in  the  house  with  him,  was  silent.  She  was  think 
ing  of  Philip,  and  wondering  how  to  frame  a  question 
which  would  inform  her  about  him  without  seeming  to 
seek  the  information. 

Beatrice  saved  her  the  need.  "  We  might  go  and  call 
on  Miss  Maurice  at  the  hotel,"  she  said,  doubtfully,  look 
ing  toward  Margaret.  "  That  would  commit  us  to  noth 
ing.  We  could  see  Mr.  Maurice  and  judge  for  ourselves. 
Do  you  think  she  would  see  us,  Ned?" 

"  Why,  she  was  going  to  bed  when  I  saw  her,  to  stay 
until  she  was  rested.  But  she  would  see  St.  John's  in  the 
Wilderness  on  her  father's  account,  I  should  think,  if  you 
made  it  plain  who  you  were.  Write  under  your  name  on 
your  card  :  '  Mrs.  Vertner,  representing  St.  John's  in  the 
Wilderness.'  You'll  get  the  consideration  of  a  commer 
cial  man  travelling  for  a  big  house." 

Beatrice  did  not  smile,  but  looked  at  Margaret  ques- 
tioningly.  "  I  think  she  might  be  willing  to  see  us," 
Margaret  answered  to  Beatrice's  inquiring  look.  "  After 
such  an  experience,  she  might  be  glad  of  the  sight  of 
friendly  faces,  even  if  they  were  strange." 

They  found  this  to  be  true  when  they  went  next  day. 


HO  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

They  both  made  friends  at  once  with  Dorothy,  who  was 
sitting  up,  and  who  told  the  story  of  what  had  befallen 
them  in  the  mountains,  gaining  for  the  first  time,  in  see 
ing  its  effect  upon  her  hearers,  a  sense  of  the  danger 
through  which  she  had  passed.  She  did  not  need  a  re 
minder  to  make  her  shudder  at  the  journey  through  the 
storm  ;  but  the  time  in  the  cave  had  not  seemed  unhappy. 
She  had  not  felt  that  they  were  in  danger — perhaps  she 
had  not  been  allowed  to  feel  it.  It  occurred  to  her  now 
to  wonder  what  might  have  happened  if  the  storm  had 
not  ceased  the  morning  after  they  had  taken  refuge  there, 
if  the  wind  had  not  fallen,  if  the  snow  had  not  begun  to 
melt,  and  if  a  party  of  miners,  on  their  way  from  Bayles's 
Park,  had  not  found  them  on  the  second  day,  weak  and 
exhausted,  of  course,  but  able  to  ride  to  Bayles's  Park, 
where  they  took  the  train. 

It  was  the  hope  of  seeing  Philip  that  had  helped  Mar 
garet  to  come  out  for  the  first  time  since  the  day  that  was 
to  have  been  her  wedding-day.  The  event  had  left  her 
spiritually  sore ;  she  could  not  bear  to  see  any  one,  much 
less  listen  to  the  questions  which  must  be  asked  if  she 
went  out.  Yet  there  was  nothing  she  liked  so  little  as 
what  she  called,  in  her  plain  speech,  "  dodging " :  it 
seemed  cowardly  not  to  take  the  world  as  it  came ;  and 
she  was  glad  of  a  strong  reason  for  going  out.  She 
wanted  to  see  Philip,  whom  she  did  not  know :  it  would 
be  the  next  thing  to  seeing  his  father.  But  it  seemed 
that  Philip  had  left  Maverick  within  a  few  hours  of  his 
arrival.  Philip,  in  fact,  had  taken  the  evening  train  the 
night  before  for  Leadville,  leaving  Cutter  to  go  on  to 
Denver,  where  he  had  friends  who  might  find  something 
for  him  to  do  in  connection  with  the  smelting- works 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  HI 

there.  Margaret  knew  that  he  must  have  gone  to  see  his 
father  at  Leadville,  and  she  flushed  as  she  thought  of  one 
of  the  probable  subjects  of  conversation  between  them. 


VI. 

As  Philip  asked  for  his  father  at  the  hotel  which  Deed 
was  accustomed  to  make  his  home  during  his  frequent 
visits  to  Leadville,  it  was  in  his  heart  to  wish  that  he  had 
not  always  been  the  unsatisfactory  son.  The  day  before 
he  might  have  wished  it  in  a  spasm  of  contrition  for  the 
necessity  of  asking  his  father  for  more  money;  but  he 
was  wishing  it  now  because  the  things  they  were  saying 
about  Deed  at  Maverick  pained  and  angered  him.  He 
was  sure  his  father  was  in  trouble,  and  he  had  come  up  to 
Leadville  with  an  impulsive  desire  to  help  him  if  he 
might.  He  had  telegraphed  him  from  Bayles's  Park  of 
their  safety,  and  from  Maverick,  as  soon  as  the  rumours 
reached  him,  that  he  was  coming  up  to  Leadville. 

He  wanted  to  help  his  father  in  the  trouble  he  merely 
guessed — he  had  not  stayed  to  hear  the  story:  but  to 
speak  to  him  as  he  would  like  to  speak,  their  relation 
should  be  more  equal ;  it  ought  to  depend  less  for  its 
harmony  on  his  father's  forbearance.  He  wished  heart 
ily  that  he  had  always  persevered  in  some  particular  oc 
cupation  ;  or,  lacking  that,  that  his  failures  had  cost  his 
father  less.  In  these  moods  he  always  denounced  his 
failures  to  himself  as  the  result  of  crude  and  silly  experi 
ments  which  he  should  have  known  enough  to  avoid :  but 
when  he  was  as  sensible  as  this  he  was  usually  a  little 


112  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

more  sensible,  and  perceived  that  the  whole  fruitless 
drama  of  his  life,  thus  far,  was  inevitable :  a  fellow  like 
him,  he  supposed,  had  to  make  an  appointed  degree  of 
fool  of  himself. 

In  this  light  the  restless  longing  of  his  boyhood  to 
possess  himself,  to  lay  hands  on  the  charter  of  his  life  on 
his  own  account ;  his  refusal  to  please  his  father  by  going 
to  Columbia ;  the  unquiet  wish  for  a  different,  a  freer  life, 
another  set  of  conditions — a  man's,  say ;  his  aimless  and 
resultless  year  in  Chile  as  a  civil  engineer;  his  six 
months  of  orange-growing  in  Florida ;  his  other  six 
months  in  which  he  saw  a  fortune  in  evaporating  peaches 
in  the  Southern  States, — it  was  the  fortune  which  had 
evaporated, — and  this  last  empty-headed  folly  at  Pinon 
— all  seemed  foolish  indeed,  but  necessary,  like  the  stages 
of  a  disease.  He  always  said  to  himself  in  these  con 
temptuous  reflections  on  his  doings  that  he  knew  better 
now,  had  learned  a  lesson.  And  this  was  in  so  far  true 
that  he  seldom  made  the  same  kind  of  fool  of  himself 
twice. 

He  was  thinking  how  glad  he  should  be  to  see  his 
father  again,  as  he  followed  the  bell-boy  out  of  the 
crowded  hotel  office  along  the  creaking  hallways  and  up 
the  swaying  stairs  (the  hotel  had  been  built  of  unseasoned 
timber,  when  sawmills  were  fifty  miles  away,  and  money 
was  worth  four  per  cent,  a  month,  and  the  structure  had 
begun  to  fall  apart),  and  wag  adding  to  himself  that 
since  it  was  in  his  blood  to  do  undesirable  things,  it  was 
trebly  undesirable  that  they  should  be  destined  to  be 
the  disappointment  and  trouble  of  so  good  a  fellow  as  his 
father.  He  treated  him  so  handsomely,  always,  that  his 
disappointment  was  seldom  in  evidence;  but  Philip  knew 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  113 

that  it  existed,  and  knew — he  recalled  the  fact  now  with 
a  bitter  smile — that  it  had  been  left  for  Jasper  to  realize 
his  father's  ideals, 

Jasper  had  been  a  cautious  and  conservative  investor 
at  ten,  a  patient,  thoroughgoing  man  of  business  at  sev 
enteen.  He  sold  foreign  stamps  at  school  while  he  was  in 
the  first  reader,  and  drove  hard  bargains  in  marbles  and 
decalcomania  pictures  before  he  knew  his  Latin  paradigms. 
He  was  eight  when  it  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  as 
well  turn  a  penny  by  serving  the  morning  paper  to  his 
father,  and  to  the  gentlemen  whom  he  knew  on  the  block 
(it  was  in  New  York),  as  to  let  the  regular  carrier  earn  it. 
He  rose  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  look  after  his 
papers,  and  he  had  been  getting  up  early  ever  since. 

Philip  never  got  up  early  unless  to  go  hunting,  or 
bird-nesting,  or  fishing,  or  to  catch  the  train  at  the  end  of 
the  term  when  he  came  from  boarding-school.  He  was 
glad  to  be  going  home  then,  and  didn't  mind :  it  was 
always  a  happiness  to  see  his  father  again.  He  was  not 
merely  his  father,  but  a  kind  of  hero  to  him.  Jasper 
often  got  home  rather  late ;  there  were  trades  to  be  set 
tled  with  the  boys  at  school.  As  the  elder  brother  (he 
used  his  advantage  of  a  year  for  all  it  was  worth)  he  was 
properly  reserved  in  his  feeling  about  the  coming.  And 
when  the  time  came,  Jasper  went  into  business,  liked  it, 
stuck  to  it,  succeeded  in  it ;  and  then  took  charge  of  the 
ranch,  and  made  a  success  of  that. 

Jasper  had  known  what  he  wanted  to  do  from  the  be 
ginning,  and  was  entirely  capable  of  doing  it.  Philip  had 
known  clearly  only  what  he  did  not  want  to  do,  and  thus 
far  had  not  done  much.  It  was  this  that  made  him  hesi 
tate  as  he  came  to  the  door  of  his  father's  room.  He 


114  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

wished  again  that  he  could  feel  that  he  stood  near  his 
father,  that  the  invariable  kindness  which  he  remembered 
in  him  from  boyhood  had  nothing  to  forgive  in  him,  that 
he  had  not  disappointed  him. 

But  he  turned  the  knob  and  went  in.  His  father  was 
sitting  under  the  ineffective  light  of  a  huge  bronze  chan 
delier  wound  about  with  a  brambly  wreath  of  gilt.  He 
was  absorbed  in  work  upon  a  heap  of  legal  documents 
scattered  over  the  table,  and  did  not  hear  Philip's  en 
trance.  When  the  son  touched  him  on  the  shoulder  he 
turned  hastily,  and  for  a  moment  did  not  perceive  who  it 
was.  When  he  saw,  he  rose  hastily,  stretching  both  hands 
out  to  him.  "  Why,  Phil !  Phil ! "  he  cried,  and  stopped, 
choking  and  not  knowing  how  to  go  on.  "  I — the  fact  is 
— I  thought  we  shouldn't  be  seeing  you — shouldn't —  0 
Phil,"  he  broke  off,  dashing  his  hands  to  his  eyes,  "  what 
luck — what  blessed  luck  !  I  had  given  you  up.  I — find 
a  seat,  will  you  ?  " 

Deed  sat  down  hastily,  and  buried  himself  in  his 
papers.  His  lip  shook. 

Philip  found  a  seat  on  the  bed.  He  himself  was  much 
agitated.  He  had  not  counted  on  this  at  all.  He  had 
allowed  for  his  father's  anxiety,  and  had  telegraphed  him 
as  soon  as  they  reached  Bayles's  Park  ;  but  that  he  would 
think  him  lost  in  the  storm  was  outside  all  his  thoughts. 
Yet  no  one  knew  better  how  near  they  had  all  actually 
been  to  death  in  the  snow.  "  Dear  father ! "  he  said  to 
himself,  as  he  watched  him  making  his  poor  feint  of  go 
ing  on  with  his  work.  "  It's  awfully  good  of  him  to 
care  ! " 

Deed  glanced  up  at  him  once,  venturing  a  smile,  and 
looked  down  again  forthwith.  When  he  was  done  with 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  115 

the  last  practicable  pretence,  he  folded  his  papers  slowly. 
Philip  had  never  seen  him  so  careful  about  adjusting 
them. 

He  rose  at  last,  clapping  the  bundled  documents  on 
the  table  briskly,  and  came  over  to  where  Philip  was  sit 
ting  on  the  bed.  Deed  dropped  down  beside  him,  laying 
his  arm  lightly  about  his  shoulders. 

"  Well,  boy,  how  goes  it?  " 

Philip  dropped  his  eyes.  "Why,  that  was  what  I 
came  up  to  ask  you,  father.  How  does  it  go  ?  " 

A  spark  lighted  in  Deed's  eye.  He  drew  in  his  breath 
sharply.  He  came  back  and  stood  before  Philip  after  a 
nervous  turn  across  the  floor. 

"  Phil  ?  " 

"  Father  ?  " 

"  You  got  my  wire  at  Laughing  Valley  ?  " 

Philip  nodded.  His  father  regarded  him  for  a  moment 
in  pained  question  of  his  face.  He  thought  he  read  his 
condemnation  in  it. 

"  Say  it,  Phil !  Say  it ! "  he  cried  hoarsely.  "  Don't 
sit  there  dumb  !  I  know  what  you  think.  You're  right. 
I  sold  you  out.  I  signed  away  your  rights.  I  did  you 
out  of  your  future  with  a  foolish,  amiable  stroke  of 
the  pen.  I  trusted  a  scoundrel,  and  you've  to  pay  for 
it.  I  wanted  to  do  the  handsome  thing  by  Jasper,  and  I 
did  it — at  your  expense.  It's  been  your  treat  all  along, 
Phil,"  he  said  with  a  miserable  smile, "  though  you  didn't 
know  it." 

Philip  leaped  up.  "  Great  heaven,  father !  you  haven't 
been  thinking  that  I  was  shouting  around  about  my  mis 
erable  little  share  in  that  business?  Surely  you  don't 
think  that  I  could  name  it  beside  your  trouble,  much  less 


BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

be  fooling  with  the  poor  question  of  blame  ?  I  should 
think  Jasper  was  enough  to  blame  for  half  a  dozen." 

His  father  smiled  sadly.  "  What  Jasper  has  done 
can't  excuse  me.  He  couldn't  have  done  it  if  I  hadn't 
thrown  the  way  open  to  him.  If  I  hadn't  trusted 
him—" 

"  And  you  expect  me  to  accuse  you  of  having  trusted 
him  ?  Wouldn't  a  father  trust  his  own  son,  I  should  like 
to  know  ?  Is  it  a  thing  he  must  answer  for  ?  " 

"  My  God,  Phil !  hasn't  he  answered  for  it,  isn't  he 
answering  for  it,  will  he  ever  get  to  the  end  of  answering 
for  it  ?  "  He  covered  his  eyes. 

"  I  know,  father,"  said  Philip,  taking  a  turn  across 
the  room.  "  Ingratitude  is  like  that.  It  hurts — it  keeps 
on  hurting." 

"  Yes,"  owned  Deed  grimly  ;  "  it  hurts." 

"  Surely  it's  enough  then.  Pray  don't  bother  about 
me.  You  would  have  done  it  for  me  in  the  same  situa 
tion.  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  that,  or  that  I  don't 
know  that  I  never  gave  you  the  chance  ?  I've  not  been 
doing  the  approved  thing.  I  never  have.  When  I  do,  it 
will  be  time  enough  for  me  to  trot  out  grievance." 

"  0  Phil,  I've  not  been  fair  to  you."  It  was  the  ex 
pression  of  his  sense  of  his  whole  course  towards  him  from 
boyhood  ;  but  Philip  took  it  to  refer  to  the  contract. 

"  Pshaw,  father,  I  shall  rub  along  for  the  few  years 
left  of  the  partnership.  What  difference  can  it  make? 
I  shall  be  all  the  better  for  having  to  make  my  own  way 
for  a  while." 

"  Few  years  ?  "  exclaimed  his  father. 

"  The  partnership — it's  five  years,  isn't  it  ?  "  said 
Philip,  dropping  on  the  bed  again,  and  curling  his  legs 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  117 

up  comfortably.  "  You  won't  mind  my  smoking  ?  "  he 
asked,  producing  a  cigarette. 

His  father  did  not  speak,  as  he  drew  a  match  across 
his  boot.  "  You  haven't  given  Jasper  anything.  I  could 
understand  your  feeling  that  unfair.  He  has  nothing 
permanently  that  is  mine.  At  worst,  you've  lost  me 
nothing,  father ;  merely  postponed  it.  It's  only  five 
years,  and  if  it  were  ten  or  fifteen,  it's  not  your  act ;  it's 
Jasper's.  Don't  talk  of  my  loss  ;  there  is  none.  And  if 
there  were,  what  would  it  be  to  yours  ?  I  could  only  lose 
money  by  him.  I'm — well,  I'm  not  his  father.  I  haven't 
protected  him,  and  worked  for  him,  and  kept  him  from 
every  sort  of  harm,  and  done  all  I  knew  for  him  since 
he  was  a  child.  I  never  gave  him  a  father's  love  and 
trust  to  wound  me  with." 

Deed  groaned.  "Oh,  stop  it,  Phil!  Stop  it!  You 
make  it  impossible  to  tell  you."  He  rose  and  wandered 
about  the  room  aimlessly,  picking  up  the  rose-flushed 
vases  on  the  mantel,  and  studying  their  red  and  gilt  flow 
ers,  turning  up  the  gas,  and  leaving  it  hissing,  detaching 
the  loop  that  caught  back  the  window-curtain,  and  return 
ing  it  to  its  bracket  again.  Philip  watched  him  wonder- 
ingly.  His  cigarette  went  out. 

"  Oh,  come,  father !  "  he  said  at  last,  smiling.  "  One 
would  think  you  had  been  putting  up  some  infernal  job 
on  me." 

His  father  looked  up,  eying  him  haggardly.  "  You've 
said  it." 

"  Said  what,  father  ?     I  don't  understand." 

Deed  paused  with  the  poker  in  his  hand  to  say  over 
his  shoulder,  as  he  stooped  to  the  fire,  "  They  didn't  tell 
you  at  Maverick,  then  ?  " 


118  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  I  gathered  you  were  in  trouble.  I  heard  that  your 
marriage  was  postponed.  I  thought  you  would  rather 
tell  me?" 

"  Oh,  so  I  would  !  So  I  would ! "  exclaimed  his  fa 
ther,  absently,  as  he  turned  from  the  fire.  He  looked 
remorsefully  into  the  eyes  that  met  his.  "  Why  didn't 
somebody  tell  you  !  "  he  cried.  Philip  made  a  place  for 
him  by  his  side,  as  he  came  meditatively  towards  him, 
with  his  head  down.  Deed  guessed  the  grease-spot  on 
the  carpet,  clouding  one  of  the  fruit-bearing  boys  in  their 
ovals,  to  be  kerosene,  as  he  paused  a  moment  in  study 
of  it. 

He  had  decided  it  was  champagne,  as  he  looked  up 
and  faced  his  son  again. 

His  voice  melted.  "  How  the  deuce  am  I  going  to  tell 
you,  Phil?" 

"  What's  the  use,  father  ?  " 

"  Oh,  use  ! "  exclaimed  Deed,  impatiently.  He  tapped 
his  foot  above  the  curly  head  of  one  of  the  dove-coloured 
boys.  "  You've  got  to  know.  Pshaw  !  Why  didn't  some 
one  tell  you  ! "  He  strode  away  to  the  other  corner  of  the 
room,  snapping  his  fingers  noiselessly. 

"  Tell  me,  father—"  began  Philip. 

"  You  won't  believe  it !  She  didn't."  He  breathed  a 
heavy  sigh.  "  I  suppose  it  isn't  very  credible,"  he  said, 
staring  into  the  air.  "  I  don't  understand  it  myself  all 
the  time." 

"  But—" 

"  It's  infamous,  I  tell  you.  You  don't  want  me  to  tell 
it.  Better  go  hear  it  from  the  gossips,  Phil.  I  supposed 
they  knew  about  it  by  this  time ;  I  trusted  to  your  having 
heard  it  from  them.  They  will  know  what  to  think 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  119 

about  it.  I  don't.  I  think  it  magnificently  right  one 
minute,  and  the  other  thing  the  next.  It's  cost  me 
enough  to  be  right ;  it's  cost  every  one  else  enough  to  be 
wrong." 

"  Tell  me,  father,"  insisted  Philip,  "  what  coil  has 
Jasper  got  you  into  ?  " 

"  Ah,  now  you  have  it,  Phil !  That's  something  like ! 
Stick  to  that !  That's  what  I  say  to  myself  when  I've 
accused  myself  black  and  blue.  I  say  it  was  Jasper.  It 
was  Jasper;  and  it  was  Adam,  too,  in  the  same  way. 
Things  have  got  to  have  a  beginning.  It  would  be  a  poor 
sin  that  hadn't  some  sort  of  provocation  to  its  back." 

"  You  forget  who  you're  talking  to,  father.  You  don't 
think  you  can  make  believe  you  have  done  anything 
wrong." 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  can  make  you  believe.  Sup 
pose,  Phil,  you  are  fool  enough  to  trust  a  man  to  wear  a 
diamond.  He  isn't  only  wearing  your  diamond,  you  see, 
but  your  trust.  One  day  he  simplifies  things  by  pocket 
ing  the  stone.  In  a  wrestle  for  it,  you*  snatch  it  from 
him  and  throw  it  into  the  river.  You  are  not  strong 
enough  to  get  it  back  for  yourself  and  keep  it ;  only  just 
strong  enough  to  keep  it  from  him  by  losing  it  yourself. 
You  see  how  you  couldn't  let  him  have  it,  don't  you, 
Phil?" 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  said  Philip,  thoughtfully. 

"  It's  not  the  stone,  you  know." 

Philip  stroked  his  mustache  thoughtfully.  "No;  it 
isn't  the  stone." 

"  You  could  bear  that ;  the  other  you  can't.  I've  sold 
the  range  for  $25,000,"  he  said  abruptly. 

Philip  started.     "  But  it  was  worth  $150,000." 


120  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Yes,"  said  his  father,  dryly ;  "  that's  the  point." 

"  My  dear  father — you  can't  do  this." 

"  Why  not? "  demanded  Deed. 

"It's  illegal,  for  one  thing.  You  can't  sell  even  a 
partner's  property  out  from  under  him." 

"  Certainly  I  can — this  sort  of  property.  I  can  sell 
the  cattle  as  if  they  were  dry-goods  or  drugs — things  a 
partner  is  as  free  to  sell  to  an  innocent  purchaser,  with 
out  the  knowledge  and  consent  of  the  other  partner,  as  if 
they  were  altogether  his  own.  They're  chattels.  And  as 
to  the  range,  whose  land  is  it  in  Colorado  ?  Not  mine. 
Not  the  partnership's.  You  don't  suppose  I'm  conveying 
a  fee  simple  to  four  or  five  thousand  acres  of  land,  I  hope. 
I  haven't  got  it  to  give.  The  purchaser  holds  it  as  he 
can.  Of  course  there  is  the  question  of  damages  with 
Jasper.  But  I'll  risk  that.  Trust  me  for  the  law  of  it, 
boy." 

Philip  stared  at  him.  "  And  what  does  Jasper  say  ?  " 
he  asked,  in  a  voice  which  he  seemed  to  hear  speaking  in 
the  tones  of  some  one  else  from  a  distance. 

His  father  glanced  up  at  him  doubtfully.  He  caught 
his  hands  behind  his  big  head  as  he  crossed  his  legs  and 
threw  himself  back  in  the  deep  sleepy-hollow  chair.  "  Jas 
per  ?  Why,  that's  just  the  pity  of  it.  We  haven't  heard 
what  Jasper  thinks.  It's  too  bad,  because  that's  where  all 
the  fun  comes  in — what  he  thinks.  The  fun  has  been 
rather  slow  so  far  in  other  quarters." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you  have  ruined  yourself  to  even 
things  up  with  Jasper?"  demanded  his  son,  making  no 
answer. 

Deed  glanced  at  his  nails.  "  I  shouldn't  put  it  that 
way,"  he  said  huskily  ;  "  but  that's  what  it  comes  to." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  121 

"  And  Miss  Derwenter — Mrs.  Deed,  my  mother  who  is 
to  be ! " 

His  father  looked  steadily  into  his  eyes  a  moment.  "  I 
meant  to  ruin  her  too,  but  she  objected." 

"  And  that  is  what—" 

"  What  parted  us  ?    Yes,"  said  his  father. 

Philip  turned  suddenly  upon  his  heel  and  strode  away 
to  the  window,  brushing  aside  the  lace  curtains,  and  van 
ishing  within  the  embrasure.  The  street  was  alight  with 
the  night  gaiety  of  Leadville.  He  bent  an  unseeing  eye 
on  the  spectacle. 

As  his  father  gazed  after  him,  a  look  of  desolation  set 
tled  on  his  face.  The  lightness  he  had  forced  fell  away 
from  him,  and  he  fixed  a  glance  upon  the  spot  where  his 
son  had  disappeared — bitter,  doubting,  wistful. 

He  saw  suddenly  how  the  self-accusations  of  his  lone 
liness — the  miserable  loneliness  which  had  overtaken  him 
since  he  had  broken  with  Margaret — had  instinctively 
looked  to  Philip  for  contradiction  all  along,  how  he  had 
relied  on  Philip's  comprehension.  At  his  lowest  he  had 
said  to  himself  that  Philip,  cruelly  injured  as  he  was  by 
his  act,  must  see  how  he  had  come  to  do  it,  must  recog 
nize  its  inevitableness.  Jasper  had  always  had  his  admira 
tion,  his  approval — Philip  was  right  about  that.  But  he 
had  always  understood  Philip  better.  He  was  more  like 
himself.  And  now  he  trusted  him  to  understand  him,  to 
make  allowances  for  a  thing  which  he  had  known  well, 
even  in  his  passion,  must  need  some  allowance  from  any 
body,  and  would  never  be  understood  at  all  by  more  than 
one  or  two.  One  of  these  he  had  supposed  confidently 
would  be  Margaret.  To  repeat  his  disappointment  in  her 
with  Philip  would  be  merely  killing :  he  could  not  bear 


122  BENEFITS  FOUGOT. 

it.  Why,  he  began  to  ask  himself,  had  he  done  this 
thing  ? 

"  Oh,  come  out  of  that,  Philip  !  "  he  cried  at  last,  in 
an  irresistible  burst  of  impatience.  "  Come  out,  and  say 
what  you've  got  to  say !  I  can  stand  it,  I  guess." 

Philip  obeyed  slowly.  He  paused  just  outside  the  cur 
tains,  fastening  his  eyes  on  the  floor. 

"There's  nothing  to  say,  father.  You've  done  it, 
haven't  you  ?  " 

"  Do  you  wish  I  hadn't  ?  "  asked  his  father,  quickly. 

"  Why,  it's  hardly  my  part,  is  it,  father,  to  question 
what  you  do  ?  " 

"  Pshaw ! "  exclaimed  his  father,  contemptuously. 
"  I'm  not  asking  for  criticism.  I  ask  about  your  feelings. 
You  know  about  them,  I  suppose.  You  understand,  I  dare 
say,  how  it  feels  to  lose  $50,000." 

Poor  Deed !  Why  should  the  wrong  which  he  was 
conscious  of  having  done  Philip  and  Margaret  make  him 
hard  toward  both  of  them,  where  he  most  wished  to  be 
gentle  ? 

Philip  winced,  but  controlled  himself  to  say :  "  What 
has  my  feeling  to  do  with  it,  father  ?  It's  the  thing  itself 
that  matters,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"You  mean  on  high  moral  grounds?"  asked  Deed, 
the  colour  rising  in  his  face  threateningly.  Philip  knew 
the  approaches  of  one  of  his  father's  bursts  of  passion  too 
well  to  feel  guiltless  in  provoking  one  of  them,  however 
remotely. 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  say  I  like  it,  father  ?  I  don't. 
But  would  my  liking  better  it  ?  Surely  you  see,  father, 
that  the  thing  is  wrong  in  itself." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  what  I  see,"  cried  Deed,  gnawing 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  123 

at  his  bristly  mustache  as  he  paced  the  floor.  "  I  know  it 
seemed  the  only  right  thing  there  was  when  I  did  it.  I 
know  I  had  to  do  it.  That's  my  safest  ground,  perhaps — 
I  had  to  do  it.  Good  God,  Phil !  you  see  that !  You 
wouldn't  have  had  me  leave  him  with  his  plunder  ?  "  He 
sat  down,  and  instantly  leaped  up  again.  Philip  wandered 
restlessly  about.  "  I  haven't  it,  it's  true,  but  he  hasn't. 
It's  cost  the  whole  subject  of  dispute  to  beat  him ;  but  I 
have  beaten  him.  I  have  rounded  on  his  devilish  falsity. 
And  I  would  do  it  again.  Yes ;  rather  than  have  to  think 
that  he  had  done  such  a  thing  and  prospered  in  it,  I  would 
do  it  twice  over.  Why,  Phil,  I've  beaten  him!  Could  I 
pay  too  much  for  that?" 

Philip  bit  his  lip.  "  Why,  since  you  ask  me,  father, 
I'm  bound  to  say  that  I  think  you  could.  I  think  you 
have.  His  being  a  blackguard  doesn't  help  it.  It  makes 
it  worse." 

Deed's  face  darkened.  "You  mean  that  you  have 
paid  too  much.  You  mean  that  I  let  you  in  for  enough 
in  making  you  pay  for  my  whim  of  pleasing  Jasper  with 
out  making  you  pay  for  my  squaring  of  accounts  with 
him?" 

"  No,"  said  Philip,  looking  in  his  father's  face ;  "  I 
don't  mean  that.  They  are  my  accounts,  too.  It's  against 
me  that  Jasper  has  done  as  much  as  against  you.  Heaven 
knows,"  he  said,  as  his  face  darkened,  and  he  doubled  his 
fist  under  his  sleeve,  u  I'd  be  glad  to  square  my  account 
with  Jasper.  If  there  is  going  to  be  a  settlement,  I'm 
ready  to  pay  my  share.  But,  father,  there  mustn't  be  a 
squaring  of  accounts  on  this  basis.  The  thing's  wrong, 
it's  indefensible,  it's  impossible." 

Deed  drove  his  clenched  hand  into  his  open  palm. 


"124  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Impossible  ?  For  whom  ?  For  you  ?  For  Margaret  ?  " 
he  demanded.  "  Or  perhaps  you  mean  for  Jasper  ?  "  he 
asked  mockingly. 

"  I  do  mean  for  Jasper.     It's  a  wrong  to  him." 

"  A  wrong  to  Jasper !"  cried  Deed,  in  scornful  amuse 
ment,  kicking  a  chair  out  of  his  path  as  he  walked  back 
and  forth.  "  T— s— s— s  !  " 

"  See  here,  father,  I've  no  love  for  Jasper.  You  must 
know  that.  But  I  can't  be  part  of  a  scheme  for  burking 
him  like  this." 

"  Burking  him  ?  " 

"  Well,  selling  him  out,  wiping  out  his  share  while  he's 
away.  You  don't  want  me  to  help  you  do  a  wrong  like 
that  to  yourself,  father  ?  " 

"  Did  I  ask  for  your  help  ?  "  inquired  Deed,  in  a  tone 
of  defence. 

Philip  flushed.  "  Why,  I  should  have  said  that  you 
had  used  it." 

"  In  wiping  out  your  share  ? "  said  his  father,  with 
threatening  calmness.  "  Do  you  object  to  that  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  I  must  say  that  I  object  to  the  purpose 
you  are  wiping  it  out  for.  Why,  father,  you  see  it  your 
self.  You've  as  much  as  owned  it.  The  thing's  not 
fair ! " 

Deed's  mouth  fell.  He  stared  at  him  in  an  amaze 
ment  that  gave  way  to  a  look  of  inexpressible  grief,  as  he 
came  and  stood  before  Philip,  and  laid  a  doubting  hand 
on  his  shoulder.  "  Phil,  Phil !  "  he  cried,  miserably  in 
terrogating  the  eyes  which  his  son  let  fall.  "  YoiCre  not 
going  back  on  me  !  " 

"  Going  back  on  you,  father  ?  "  Philip  snatched  the 
hand  hanging  by  his  side.  "  I'm  trying  to  save  you. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  125 

You're  letting  yourself  in  for  a  lifetime  of  remorse. 
You'll  kick  yourself  for  this  thing  before  you  are  a  week 
older.  Think,  father !  Can  you  afford  to  do  a  wrong 
like  this  to  Jasper?" 

His  father  gave  an  inarticulate  grunt  of  contempt, 
and  bit  his  lip  as  if  he  feared  what  he  might  be  tempted 
to  say.  It  had  been  in  his  mind  to  tell  Philip  that  he 
had  done  his  best  to  buy  his  word  back  about  the  range, 
in  order  to  keep  his  word  with  Margaret,  and  that  he 
had  had  his  trouble  for  his  pains.  But  he  would  not 
give  him  so  much  satisfaction  now.  It  had  not  been 
done  for  Jasper's  sake,  at  all  events,  he  said  to  himself 
scornfully. 

"  Drop  it,  Phil ! "  he  said  suddenly,  at  last.  "  This 
isn't  a  safe  subject  between  us.  I  know  what  I've  done. 
I've  never  had  a  doubt — not  one  single  moment's  doubt, 
mind  you — about  this  as  far  as  Jasper  is  concerned.  He's 
done  me  the  cruelest  wrong  that  a  son  can  do  a  father. 
Do  you  think  it's  a  time  to  be  nice  about  what  I  do  to 
him  ?  " 

"  Why,  father,  isn't  it  the  time  of  times  ?  If  he  had 
never  wronged  you,  one  might  afford  a  luxury  like  that. 
One  can  do  it  with  best  friends.  But  to  do  an  indefensi 
ble  thing — you  own  that,  father :  it  is  indefensible — and 
to  choose  Jasper  for  the  object  of  it ! — you  see,  yourself, 
it  won't  work.  When  you  put  him  in  the  right  by  put 
ting  yourself  in  the  wrong  with  him,  you're  simply  taking 
a  permanent  lease  of  torment.  There's  no  end  to  the 
mess,  this  way.  Don't  you  see  it?  Aggression  of  some 
sort  becomes  his  right.  It  will  be  almost  a  virtue  in  him. 
Where  will  there  ever  be  end  to  it  ?  It  will  make  you  un 
happy,  father.  That  is  what  I'm  thinking  of.  And  the 


126  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

unhappiest  part  of  the  whole  business  will  be  when  you 
see  that,  after  all,  it  wasn't  fair." 

"  Fair  ! "  cried  his  father,  hoarsely.  "  Fair  !  Oh,  the 
devil ! "  He  sat  down,  clenching  his  hands.  The  blood 
rose  in  his  face. 

"  Did  you  wish  to  be  unfair  ?  " 

"Yes!"  shouted  Deed.  "Yes!  I  wished  to  be  all 
that  you  imply  !  I  wished  to  be  unfair  to  both  of  you  ! " 

"  Both  of  us  !  "  exclaimed  Philip,  turning  pale. 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  think  !  I  wished  to  be  unfair 
to  Jasper,  and  to  do  it  I  must  be  doubly  unfair  to  you, 
and  I  didn't  care.  You  don't  say  it.  You  talk  of  Jasper." 

"  Father,  can  you  think —  ?  " 

"  Yes — more  than  you  say." 

Philip  grew  white  about  the  nostrils.  "  I  have  said 
all  that  I  mean.  I  say  it's  shabby  to  freeze  Jasper  out  in 
his  absence ;  I  say  that  you  are  free  to  use  whatever  share 
I  may  claim  in  the  range  as  you  like.  But  not  for  that. 
I  won't  be  a  party  to  it.  I  won't  stand  by  and  see  you  do 
such  a  wrong  to  yourself." 

"  Say  what  you  mean  ! "  cried  his  father,  with  an  im 
plication  in  his  voice  which  maddened  Philip  beyond 
control. 

"  Father  !  "  he  cried  warningly. 

Deed  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets,  and,  facing 
him  with  deliberate  bitterness,  looked  into  his  eyes.  "  I 
will  pay  you  every  penny  of  your  d fifty  thousand  dol 
lars  before  you  are  twenty-four  hours  older." 

For  a  moment  Philip  stared  at  his  father  in  speechless 
anger.  Then  with  a  cry  of  rage  he  burst  from  the  room. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  127 


VII. 

THE  clerk  in  the  office  spared  a  single  gleam  of  the 
eye,  which  was  busy  challenging  the  newcomers  by  the 
evening  express  from  Denver — looking  them  into  the 
earth  and  pardoning  them  into  existence  again  long 
enough  to  send  them  aloft  in  the  care  of  "  Front," — to 
observe  Philip's  quick  push  through  the  office.  The 
crowd  parted  before  his  blind  look  and  determined  arm, 
and  in  a  moment  he  was  in  the  air,  reeling  up  the  street, 
with  his  veins  aflame  and  his  tongue  hot  upon  his  lips. 

His  anger  bore  him  on  through  the  mob  that  com 
monly  fills  the  sidewalk  to  its  edge  at  night  in  Leadville. 
They  gave  way  before  his  white  face  and  set  look.  He 
did  not  know  where  he  was  going  until  a  sharp  ascent  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  town  took  his  breath  in  the  manner 
of  lesser  elevations  at  the  altitude  of  Leadville.  He 
paused  on  the  summit,  and,  snatching  off  his  hat,  bared 
his  moist  forehead  and  beating  head. 

The  sweet,  strong,  uplifting  keenness  of  the  mountain 
air  swept  through  his  brain.  He  pushed  back  the  thick 
hair  about  his  brow,  and  stared  up  at  the  stars,  shining 
down  upon  him  through  an  atmosphere  fined  to  an  ethe 
real  rarity.  The  intolerable  exaltation  of  the  air  played 
upon  his  fevered  spirit. 

Standing  there,  he  said  to  himself  that  he  could  never 
forgive  his  father ;  the  affront  was  too  deep,  the  miscon 
ception  too  gross.  That  he  should  think  him  capable  of 
such  meanness ;  that  he  should  be  ready  on  the  suggestion 
of  an  instant  to  class  him  with  Jasper ;  above  all,  that 
he  should  asperse  him  with  the  thought  that  he  could 


128  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

use  a  pretended  impulse  of  fairness  to  a  man  who  had 
done  him  a  wrong — an  impulse  of  generosity,  if  one  liked 
(standing  out  there  in  the  air  Philip  said  to  himself  that, 
after  all,  it  was  generous),  to  cloak  a  low  appeal  for  him 
self — it  was  too  much  !  It  was  not  what  any  man  could 
be  expected  to  forgive  another.  He  repeated  to  himself 
often  that  he  did  not  care  that  he  was  his  father.  No 
human  relationship  could  give  a  man  the  right  to  insult 
another  like  that. 

And  then,  in  a  moment,  he  laughed  at  the  boyish  self- 
assertion,  and  could  have  wept  for  his  father.  The  air 
was  really  too  tense ;  he  could  not  think  in  it. 

He  recalled  inconsequently  that  he  had  meant  to  ask 
his  father  to  lend  him  $400.  The  recollection  was  a  fresh 
pain.  It  seemed  to  him  that  his  father  could  not  have 
suspected  him  in  just  that  way  if  he  had  not  given  him 
good  cause  to  know  that  he  was  always  in  want  of  money 
— that  the  whole  question  of  money  ruled  him,  at  times, 
in  a  way  which  he  himself  could  not  reconcile  with 
better  things  in  his  nature.  ~No  wonder  his  father  had 
thought  his  urgency  interested.  Had  he  ever  shown  him 
self  disinterested  where  money  was  involved  ? 

As  he  went  back  through  the  town  he  thought  he 
would  go  straight  to  his  father  and  make  it  right  for 
him.  But  the  low  instinct  of  pride,  which  Philip  was 
disposed  in  heated  moments  to  take  for  the  noblest  thing 
in  himself,  withheld  him.  He  could  not  do  it.  Finally, 
perhaps,  he  would  do  it — indeed,  the  subtle  second  con 
sciousness  knew  very  well  that  in  the  end  he  must  do  it, 
for  he  could  not  live  unreconciled  to  his  father;  the 
amiable  need,  mixed  of  generosity  and  selfishness,  to  live 
at  one  with  those  nearest  him  would  force  him  to  it  at 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  129 

last;  and  he  knew  that  he  could  never  let  his  father 
make  the  advance.  That  would  be  too  shameful ;  yet  he 
must  refuse  himself  the  happiness  of  going  to  bed  with 
it  righted. 

He  knew  for  a  folly  the  honour  that  he  did  the  shallow 
conceit  of  dignity,  in  waiting ;  but  he  could  not  get  him 
self  into  the  door  of  the  hotel  and  up  the  stairs  to  his 
father's  room  when  the  time  came.  He  crossed  over  to 
the  other  side  of  the  street  when  he  reached  the  hotel,  and 
then  he  saw  that  his  father's  light  was  out.  He  told  him 
self,  now,  that  he  had  probably  meant  to  do  it  to-night, 
after  all;  that  he  had  been  postponing  it  until  he  should 
have  had  a  glass  of  something  at  Pop  Wyman's  to  clear 
his  head ;  and  he  believed  that  he  was  sorry  his  father 
had  gone  to  bed.  But  when  he  found  him  playing  at  the 
faro-table,  where  he  paused  for  a  moment,  after  his  glass 
at  the  bar,  he  sheered  away  hastily,  avoiding  his  eye ;  and 
went  unhappily  down  Chestnut  street,  plunging  into  the 
first  dance-hall  he  passed,  and  suffering  one  of  the  "  beer- 
jerkers  "  to  wheedle  him  into  treating  her  to  a  mint-julep. 
She  said  she  never  took  anything  but  mint-juleps.  He 
saw  again  remorsefully  the  look  on  his  father's  face  as  he 
bent  over  the  faro-table  (he  was  losing  heavily),  while  he 
chaffed  the  girl  vaguely,  from  some  exterior  nimbus  of 
intelligence,  on  her  fad  for  mint-juleps.  When  she  would 
have  dragged  him  upon  the  floor,  however,  to  join  the 
quadrille  that  was  forming,  he  broke  away  without  cere 
mony,  and  made  for  the  door. 

The  miners  in  their  blue  shirts  and  brown,  copper- 
riveted  trousers  stuck  into  their  boots,  and  with  their 
armories  belted  around  their  waists,  beat  time  to  the  mu 
sic  which  was  just  beginning  in  the  hot  and  reeking  hall, 


130  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

dimly  lighted  by  kerosene-lamps.  One  of  them  shouted 
after  him  by  name  to  come  back.  Philip,  as  he  turned 
for  a  moment  at  the  door,  recognized  the  speaker  for  a 
man  he  had  known  at  Pinon.  It  was  young  Hafferton, 
the  tutor  who  had  given  up  his  post  at  Dartmouth  to 
come  West  for  consumption,  and,  recovering,  had  not  ye't 
found  enough  money  to  take  him  back.  He  had  been  the 
single  reporter  of  the  daily  paper  at  Pifion.  He  had  a 
long  nose  and  a  thin,  straggling  beard,  and  wore  glasses. 
Philip  supposed  he  was  working  the  mine  he  used  to  talk 
to  him  about  taking,  with  half  a  dozen  other  impecunious 
young  men  of  his  own  sort,  on  a  lease. 

"  Oh,  hello,  Hafferton  ! "  he  said,  in  listless  recogni 
tion.  He  went  back  for  a  moment  to  shake  hands  with 
him  over  the  rail  dividing  the  dancing-floor  from  the 
drinking-bar.  Hafferton  told  him  that,  as  he  had  sup 
posed,  he  was  working  the  "  Come  to  me  Quickly  "  on 
a  lease.  They  were  hiring  no  labour,  but  putting  in  their 
own.  They  had  found  good  pay  dirt,  he  said,  and  were 
doing  Well.  He  hoped  to  start  for  home  in  the  spring, 
and  to  have  a  little  left  when  he  got  back  to  keep  him  go 
ing  until  he  could  find  something  to  do  again.  He  was 
tired  of  mining.  He  had  given  up  all  the  brave  hopes 
with  which  he  had  begun.  He  was  content  to  take  a  fair 
day's  wages  out  of  their  leased  claim  day  by  day,  if  he 
might. 

"  I  suppose  we  shall  think  of  this  as  a  stereopticon 
view  we've  seen,  rather  than  as  a  real  experience,  a  year 
or  two  hence,  when  we're  back  East,"  said  Hafferton, 
glancing  about  the  dingy  room.  "  But  we  must  take  what 
fun's  moving.  '  Everything  goes  in  Colorado,'  "  he  said, 
repeating  the  current  slang  phrase. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  131 

Philip  refused  the  inclusion  of  himself  in  this  point 
of  view  with  a  glance  which  should  have  explained  to  Haf- 
ferton  what  an  ass  he  was.  But  Hafferton  went  on,  uii- 
disquieted : 

"You're  down  on  your  ranch,  now,  I  suppose?" 
Philip's  plans  for  leaving  Piflon  had  been  known  before 
Hafferton  left  for  Leadville. 

"  I've  no  ranch,"  growled  Philip,  ungraciously. 

"  Why,  but  I  thought — "  began  Hafferton,  doubtfully, 
beginning  to  feel  the  distance  in  Philip's  manner. 

"  I  know  you  did.     So  did  I." 

"  Somebody  jumped  your  claim  ?  " 

Philip  surveyed  him  a  moment,  wondering  if  he  could 
have  heard  anything.  "No,"  said  he,  truculently,  as  if 
Hafferton  was  likely  to  dispute  it ;  "I  sold  it." 

"  Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Hafferton.  He  had  a  chirpy  man 
ner,  and  a  polite  little  voice  which  twisted  every  nerve  in 
Philip.  "  I  hope  you  got  a  good  price  for  it." 

He  looked  at  Philip  uncertainly.  "  I  think  they're 
waiting  for  me,"  he  said,  glancing  behind  him,  where  the 
three  sets  on  the  floor  were  making  the  preliminary  bows 
to  their  partners.  His  own  young  lady  was  beckoning  to 
him.  "  So  long  ! "  he  said,  waving  his  hand  lightly  as  he 
disappeared. 

At  the  theatre  across  the  way  Philip  made  out,  through 
the  cloud  of  tobacco-smoke  hovering  between  him  and  the 
stage,  an  elderly  woman  in  a  ball-dress,  the  skirt  of  which 
reached  to  her  knees.  She  was  describing  to  the  audience 
from  the  footlights  in  song  how  she  met  her  "  Harry  "  on 
Carbonate  Hill  every  pleasant  afternoon  at  the  change  of 
shifts.  The  burden  of  the  matter  was  that  Harry  was 
"  such  a  nice  young  man  ! "  Philip  found  himself  waiting 


132  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

for  the  wriggle  with  which  the  cracked  voice  attacked  this 
phrase  at  the  end  of  each  stanza;  and  came  to  wonder 
dully,  as  she  would  begin  the  amorous  tale  afresh,  how  she 
was  going  to  connect  the  sense  of  this  stanza  at  the  end 
with  her  central  truth,  while  the  thought  went  buzzing  in 
his  head :  "  He  means  to  raise  that  money  to-morrow. 
How?" 

The  epithets  which  he  would  use  against  himself  on 
ordinary  occasions  of  remorse  did  not  enough  blacken  his 
act.  How  could  he  have  allowed  the  talk  with  his  father, 
which  he  had  meant  should  console  him  with  the  knowl 
edge  that  he,  at  least,  remained  faithful  to  him,  to  issue  in 
an  estrangement  between  them,  and  in  this  miserable  re 
solve  of  his  father's  to  pay  him  a  foolish  debt  of  pride  ? 
His  father  had  been  trying.  Oh,  of  course.  But  might 
he  not  have  guessed  that  he  must  be  trying  ?  He  knew 
his  temper.  Knowing  the  fine,  the  good,  the  generous 
man  behind  it,  had  he  ever  cared  for  that  before  ?  And 
remembering  the  trial  through  which  he  had  just  passed, 
recalling  that  he  had  found  him  still  trembling  from  the 
hurt  that  Jasper  had  dealt  him,  should  he  not  have  for 
borne  ?  Should  he  not,  at  all  events  and  at  all  costs,  have 
avoided  losing  his  second  son  to  him  ?  But  what  he  had 
implied  was  intolerable ;  he  turned  hot  at  thought  of  it. 
Yet  if  to  be  imagined  so  base  was  maddening,  what  must 
it  not  be  to  his  father  to  think  him  so  ?  He  rose  with  the 
determination  to  hunt  up  his  father,  and  to  make  him 
know  his  thought  before  he  slept.  They  could  settle  the 
Jasper  question  another  time.  Just  now  his  only  anxiety 
was  for  reconciliation. 

He  refused  the  return-check  offered  him  by  the  frowsy 
being  who  guarded  the  exit  to  the  theatre.  The  assurance 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  133 

that  Harry  was  "  such  a  nice  young  man  "  followed  him 
with  a  dying  quaver  and  simper  into  the  street. 

.  On  the  sidewalk  he  encountered  Vertner.  It  appeared 
that  the  latter  had  come  up  to  Leadville  from  Maverick  to 
see  Deed  about  a  mine  they  were  interested  in  together — 
to  speak  accurately,  a  mine  which  Vertner  had  induced 
Deed  to  join  him  in  purchasing.  The  mine  was  filling 
with  water,  :and  it  was  a  question  between  putting  in  ex 
pensive  machinery  to  pump  it  out,  and  abandoning  it. 
Vertner  had  in  his  pocket  an  assay  of  the  vein  they  were 
working. 

"  Your  father  says  we  can't  afford  to  go  on  with  it ; 
says  he  hasn't  got  any  money  (I  believe  him,  for  he  was 
just  trying  to  borrow  $25,000  when  I  struck  him)  ;  but  I 
say  we  can't  afford  to  give  it  up.  Taber  might ;  we  can't. 
It's  a  chance  in  a  lifetime.  With  dirt  like  that  in  sight, 
it's  only  the  rich  who  can  afford  to  economize.  You  don't 
happen  to  have  $10,000  in  your  clothes,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Philip  ;  "  I  was  just  going  to  ask  you  if 
you  knew  where  I  could  borrow  $50,000." 

Vertner  stopped  short  (they  were  walking  together 
towards  Harrison  Avenue),  taking  Philip  unceremoni 
ously  by  the  arm.  "  See  here,  put  me  on  to  this  thing  ! 
What  are  you  and  your  father  up  to  ?  Is  there  a  dollar 
in  it?" 

"Aren't  you  in  schemes  enough,  Vertner?"  he  asked, 
to  turn  the  subject. 

"  No,  my  boy.  There  are  not  schemes  enough  in  the 
cosmos  for  the  energy  I  feel  in  myself  when  I  get  up  any 
of  these  fine  mornings.  And  the  mints  don't  manufac 
ture  the  money  that  I  feel  I  could  use.  What's  the  use 
of  living  if  you  haven't  a  new  idea  for  the  new  day,  as  it 


134:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

comes  along  ?  These  fellows  that  get  an  idea  when  they 
are  eighteen,  and  spread  it  thin  over  the  rest  of  their  lives, 
to  make  it  last,  give  me  a  pain.  Come,  whisper  it  to  your 
uncle !  What  are  you  up  to — you  and  your  father  ?  " 

"  Oh,  drop  it,  Vertner  ! "  cried  Philip,  wearily. 

Vertner's  quick  ear  caught  the  accent  of  pain  in  his 
voice.  "  Oh,  well,  now  you've  got  to  tell  me,  or  own  up 
that  you  won't  let  a  fellow  help  you.  The  scheme  is 
dropped  with  pleasure.  I'm  starting  a  popular  subscrip 
tion  that's  worth  two  of  it.  I  call  it '  Vertner's  Grand 
Popular  Subscription  for  the  Presentation  to  Philip  Deed, 
Esq.,  of  a  Nickel- Plated  Derrick  to  be  Employed  in  Ele 
vating  Him  from  some  Confounded  Muss.' "  He  wrote 
the  words  on  the  air  with  a  fluent  hand  as  they  walked  up 
Harrison  Avenue  towards  the  hotel.  The  crowd  had  be 
gun  to  disperse  ;  the  shops  were  dark,  and  the  gambling- 
houses  cast  the  only  light,  save  that  of  the  electric  lamps, 
upon  the  street  from  behind  their  glass  fronts.  "  There's 
going  to  be  one  subscriber  to  my  fund — just  one.  If  you 
want  $50,000,  you've  got  to  have  it,  and  I'm  going  to  get 
it  for  you." 

"  It's  deuced  white  of  you,  Vertner,"  said  Philip,  with 
gloomy  gratitude ;  "  but  you  can't  do  it.  I  want  it  to 
morrow."  He  threw  away  his  cigarette  and  began  rolling 
another.  "  Try  something  possible.  Prevent  my  father 
from  borrowing  $25,000.  It  will  do  me  the  same  service.'* 

"  Oh,  come  !  I  call  for  a  show-down  ! "  cried  Vertner. 
"/  don't  know  what  you  are  driving  at." 

"  My  father  has  a  crazy  notion  of  paying  me  $50,000 
to-morrow.  Other  men  would  threaten  it.  He  will  do 
it.  He  fancies — he  thinks — "  Philip  gulped  down  the 
lump  in  his  throat — "  he  has  an  idea  that  I  am  kick- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  135 

ing  about  that  business  with  Jasper.  You  know  about 
that?" 

"  No,"  said  Vertner,  a  quickening  glance  of  curiosity 
passing  over  his  shrewd  face ;  "  I  don't.  What  was  it?" 

Philip  told  him  fully,  as  they  passed  under  an  electric 
lamp,  the  knife-edge  glare  of  which  showed  their  faces, 
and  would  have  tempted  an  observer  to  note  the  contrast 
between  them — to  remark  how  Philip's  sinewy  bulk  made 
more  than  its  impression  by  the  side  of  Vertner's  slight, 
wiry  build,  thin,  alert  little  face,  and  medium  stature ; 
and  how  Vertner,  who,  in  his  own  way,  was  as  sufficient 
as  the  driving-wheel  of  an  engine,  took  an  aspect  of  in 
effectiveness  from  the  power  expressing  itself  in  every  line 
of  Philip's  frame. 

The  deceptive  outward  look  of  ineffectiveness,  which 
was  accented  by  contrast  with  Philip,  was  always  what 
impressed  those  who  met  Vertner  for  the  first  time ; 
and  coupled  with  the  still,  sleepy  gaze  habitually  dwelling 
in  his  eyes  while  he  was  engaged  in  the  approaches  to 
"  talking  business,"  it  had  often  encouraged  men  with 
whom  he  dealt  in  his  early  Colorado  days  to  trade  on  the 
unsophistication  of  an  under-endowed  young  innocent — 
as,  with  a  twinkling  eye,  Vertner  said,  in  the  Western 
slang  that  often  displaced  the  inadequacies  of  his  Massa 
chusetts  English,  "  It  was  the  kind  of  case  where  a  man 
picks  you  up  for  a  sucker,  and  lays  you  down  for  a  shark." 

To  the  casual  eye  Vertner  looked  about  Philip's  age, 
not  because  he  was  not  seven  years  older,  but  because 
Philip's  superior  height  and  weight,  his  tanned  cheek, 
heavy  mustache,  high-growing  hair,  lips  closed  firmly  on 
each  other  from  habit,  and  a  certain  look  of  manly  self- 
command  in  his  quiet  eyes,  added  five  or  six  years  to  his 


136  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

twenty-three  summers ;  while  Vertner,  who  went  always 
clean  shaven,  whose  hair  was  fair  and  thin,  whose  smooth, 
clever,  keen,  good-humoured  face  had  the  incurable  boy 
ish  look  through  all  its  shrewdness,  that  every  one  will  re 
member  in  some  man-boy  he  knows — Vertner,  I  say,  pro 
cured  a  diminution  of  his  thirty  years  by  six  or  seven  in 
the  eyes  of  the  casual  observer.  The  observer,  when  he 
came  to  know  him  better,  would  have  perceived  the 
shrewd  lines  beginning  to  gather  at  the  corners  of  his 
mouth.  By  this  time  he  would  have  liked  Vertuer,  or  he 
might  have  gone  on  to  add  that  it  was  a  sophisticated, 
even  a  calculating  mouth ;  and  might  have  found  some 
thing  hard  in  those  shrewd  lines. 

"  Father  imagines,"  concluded  Philip,  as  they  moved 
on, — "  something  I  said  gave  him  the  idea, — that  I  feel  my 
self  swindled  by  what  he  did — selling  Jasper  out.  You 
know  my  father.  He  doesn't  need  facts  for  his  anger,  and 
what  I  said  was  easily  misunderstood.  It  was  in  the  na 
ture  of  the  thing.  One  word  for  Jasper  looked  like  two 
for  myself.  It  ended  in  his  swearing  that  he  would  pay 
me  my  third  share  in  the  ranch  within  twenty-four  hours. 
That  was  to-night.  He  had  the  $25,000  by  him  from  the 
sale  of  the  ranch.  That's  plain  enough  from  his  trying  to 
borrow  only  $25,000.  But  he  can  no  more  raise  $25,000 
more  by  to-morrow,  as  things  are  with  him,  than  you  can, 
Vertner.  He'll  do  it  though.  You  know  that.  And  he'll 
do  it  at  a  cost  that  he  will  pay  for  with  every  moment  of 
his  life  afterward." 

"  Um.  You  wouldn't  need  the — the  trifle  you  mention 
very  long,  would  you  ?  " 

"  Long  enough  to  lend  it  to  my  father,  take  it  from 
him,  and  pay  it  back." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  137 

"  You're  not  thinking  of  lending  it  to  him  yourself,  I 
take  it.  There  is  to  be  somebody  in  between  ?  " 

"  Certainly.  I  suppose  it  wouldn't  be  hard  to  find  a 
man  generous  enough  to  lend  father  $25,000  of  my  money 
without  security  if  I  could  get  the  $25,000." 

They  were  at  the  door  of  a  saloon.  Philip  said  he  had 
just  been  drinking,  and  wanted  nothing;  but  he  went  in 
with  Vertner,  who  ordered  vermuth,  and  insisted  on  his 
taking  something  with  him.  Vertner  had  learned  to  drink 
vermuth  in  the  fast  set  into  which  he  had  fallen  at  the 
preparatory  school  from  which  there  had  once  been  an  in 
tention  of  sending  him  to  Harvard. 

"  No  ;  no  more,"  said  Philip,  shaking  his  head  in  an 
swer  to  Vertner's  urgence,  after  their  one  glass  together. 

"  Well,  then,  take  my  good  advice,"  said  Vertner,  as 
they  went  out  into  the  street  together.  "  Take  something 
with  me.  If  I  were  in  your  shoes,  I'd  skip." 

"  Oh,  no,  you  wouldn't,  Vertner.  You'd  know  my 
father  if  you'd  lived  in  my  shoes  as  long  as  I  have,  and 
you'd  see  the  folly  of  it.  He'll  pay  that  money  over  to  me 
just  the  same,  you  know,  whether  I  am  here  to  take  it  in 
person  or  not.  It's  not  difficult  to  deposit  a  check  to  my 
credit  at  his  bank,  and  notify  me  by  wire.  If  I  am  going 
to  attempt  refusing  it,  I  can  do  it  better  by  staying.  The 
other  way  I  should  be  helpless.  If  I  stay,  though  I  can't 
really  refuse  it,  perhaps  I  can  manage  what  will  come  to 
the  same  thing." 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  exclaimed  Vertner,  good-naturedly 
abandoning  the  point.  "  Count  on  me." 

They  walked  Harrison  Avenue  for  an  hour  or  more, 
discussing  plans  for  preventing  Deed  from  borrowing  the 
money.  Philip  could  not  have  given  a  name  to  his  fears. 


138  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

He  merely  knew  that  since  his  father  had  stripped  himself 
of  the  ranch  he  could  not  lay  hands  at  such  notice  on 
$25,000  of  his  own ;  and  he  knew  no  less  well  that  some 
where,  in  some  way,  he  would  lay  hands  on  it,  and  would 
pay  it  over  to  him,  if  he  would  let  him,  next  day,  to 
gether  with  $25,000  more.  He  was  haunted  by  a  strange 
dread. 

They  went  into  one  saloon  and  another.  Philip  was 
restless.  At  several  places  they  overheard  talk  about  Deed. 
It  was  one  o'clock,  and  they  had  dropped  into  St.  Anne's 
Eest,  when  Philip,  as  he  put  his  glass  to  his  lips  (he  was 
drinking  too  much,  and  was  conscious  of  it,  but  was  in 
capable  of  stopping),  heard  a  red-faced  man  standing  next 
him  at  the  bar,  say,  with  an  oath  : 

"  Just  my  luck  !  Deed  and  I  are  on  this  here  Church 
Building  Fund  together.  Our  committee  subscribed  the 
square  thing,  and  now  Deed'll  shirk  his  share  when  the 
time  comes,  and  the  committee'll  have  to  make  up  his  sub 
scription  among  themselves.  I  always  said  we  ought  to 
have  subscribed  it  separately  'stid  of  as  a  committee ;  but 
Hank  Jackson  wanted  to  keep  his  subscription  dark.  He 
wasn't  ponying  up  as  much  as  usual.  Shouldn't  wonder 
if  he  was  going  same  way  as  Deed.  '  Iron  Silver '  or 
'  Morning  Star,'  did  you  say  ?  " 

His  companion,  whose  florid  face  was  supported  upon 
a  bull  neck,  and  whose  mustache  had  been  trained  to  wan 
ton  in  a  grandiose  curve,  and  to  hang  its  spreading  bought 
within  easy  twirling  distance  of  his  collar,  said  that  it  was 
the  "  Iron  Silver  "  he  had  spoken  of. 

"  He  must  be  hard  up  !  Men  in  this  town  ain't  put 
ting  up  '  Iron  Silver '  stock  even  when  they  want  to  bor 
row  $25,000  pretty  bad — not  very  brash ! " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  139 

Philip  had  put  down  his  glass.  His  muscles  grew 
rigid.  The  impulse  to  seize  the  bull  neck,  and  to  choke 
the  man  until  he  denied  it,  was  a  mastering  need  ;  but  he 
forbore.  Perhaps  the  man  spoke  the  truth.  He  turned 
pale,  and  pinched  his  eyes  with  his  fingers,  and  beat  his 
head  to  clear  his  brain  of  the  fumes  of  the  liquor  he  had 
drunk.  "  Come  !  "  he  cried  to  Vertner,  clutching  his  arm. 
Vertner  stood  still,  listening.  "  Come  !  "  he  repeated 
hoarsely. 

"You  heard?"  he  said,  when  they  were  outside,  in 
the  cold,  strong  air. 

"  Yes.  The  thing's  got  to  be  stopped !  I'm  with 
you." 

"  Stopped !  "  exclaimed  Philip.  "  Stopped  !  My  God, 
man,  do  you  know  whose  '  Iron  Silver  '  shares  those  are  ?  " 

"  Your  father's." 

"  Humph  !     Listen ! "    He  whispered  in  his  ear. 

Vertner  started.  Under  the  ghostly  glare  of  the  elec 
tric  light  his  face  paled.  He  repeated  Philip's  word  in 
the  same  whisper.  He  caught  his  arm  vehemently,  in 
quiringly. 

Philip  nodded.     "  Come  ! "  he  said. 

"Where?" 

"  To  the  telegraph-office." 

"  It's  closed." 

"  They'll  open  it  for  a  thing  like  this." 

"  "What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"  Do  f    I'm  going  to  get  that  money." 

Vertner  went  with  him. 


140  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 


VIII. 

BEATRICE  did  not  wholly  respect  her  fancy  that  she 
occasionally  saw  a  look  of  dogged  repression  or  patient 
pain  in  Dr.  Ernfield's  eyes  lately.  She  had  fallen  into 
the  wifely  habit  of  seeing  things  a  little  qualified  by  her 
husband's  probable  comments  on  her  observations ;  and 
she  knew  that  Vertner  would  make  fun  of  her  if  she  told 
him  of  this  fancy.  But  the  listless  step  which  had  re 
placed  the  briskness  prevailing  through  the  worst  of  his 
former  weakness,  and  the  growing  haggardness  of  his 
whole  outward  aspect,  were  things  which  any  one  must 
see,  she  said  to  herself  after  a  day  or  two.  She  wondered 
that  Margaret,  who  saw  so  much  of  him,  appeared  to  be 
blind  to  them ;  but  then,  Margaret  was  blind.  For  her 
part,  she  resolved  to  say  nothing.  It  was  not  her  affair. 

Fred  Kelfner,  his  stable-boy  and  factotum,  the  warmth 
of  whose  affection  for  his  employer  was  one  of  the  joke.s 
of  the  town,  noticed  the  change,  at  all  events,  imme 
diately,  and  told  at  home  that  "  Doc  was  growin'  peaked 
ag'in,  and  losin'  all  he'd  gained."  Fred  drove  Ernfield 
about,  and  was  frequently  at  the  house.  Beatrice  and 
Margaret  often  exchanged  a  word  with  him :  his  loyal 
adoration  of  the  doctor,  taking  no  account  of  the  derision 
it  won  him  among  boys  of  his  own  age,  touched  them. 

"  It  don't  make  no  difference  to  a  feller  what  he  does 
for  a  brick ! "  he  had  said  at  some  intimation  from 
Beatrice  on  one  occasion  that  his  fealty  might  lose  him 
caste  among  the  boys.  He  said  it  with  the  exaltation  of 
a  noble  of  King  Henry's  at  Ivry,  chanting, 

And  be  our  oriflamrae  to-dny,  King  Henry  of  Navarre ! 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  141 

And  Beatrice  gladly  abandoned  him  to  the  consequences 
of  his  faith  to  his  liege. 

His  talk  about  Ernfield's  health,  reaching  Beatrice  at 
last  through  her  kitchen,  suffused  her  prophetic  soul  with 
a  glow  of  confirmation  not  all  pain.  When  it  finally 
reached  Margaret,  through  Beatrice,  she  took  shame  to 
herself  for  having  leaned  on  him  so  much.  She  recog 
nized  that,  in  the  week  since  Deed's  departure,  she  had 
fallen  into  a  habit  of  dependence  upon  him  for  part  of 
her  daily  support — a  habit  which  she  could  not  help  see 
ing  was  growing  upon  her.  A  perception  of  the  way  in 
which  others  must  have  leaned  on  his  generous  strength, 
if  she,  so  entirely  accustomed  to  stand  alone,  could  fall 
in  a  few  days  into  the  habit,  overwhelmed  her  at  the  same 
moment.  In  the  light  of  this  she  seemed  to  understand 
how  he  had  come  to  his  present  condition. 

When  Margaret  had  worked  so  much  out  in  her  own 
mind,  she  had  a  conscience  about  suffering  him  in  any 
way  to  help  her  bear  the  weight  of  her  own  misery.  But 
her  resolve  to  deny  herself  the  support  of  his  strength 
was  found  to  be  less  easily  carried  out  by  a  mere  exertion 
of  will  than  some  of  her  other  resolves.  If  she  was 
to  see  him  at  all  she  discovered  that  he  must  con 
stantly  lend  her  a  part  of  himself  unconsciously.  It 
was  not  a  question  whether  she  could  feel  free  to  accept 
the  beneficent  sturdiness  that  walled  her  about  from  the 
poignant  world  that  she  dared  not  yet  take  a  look  at, 
and  sustained  her  from  day  to  day  in  her  own  sense 
of  the  duty  that  remains,  though  pleasure  goes.  It  ex 
isted  for  her,  as  the  sun  exists;  if  she  put  herself  in 
the  way  of  its  rays  she  could  not  be  less  than  warm  if 
she  would. 


142  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"When,  at  length,  she  took  this  scruple  to  Beatrice,  she 
was  openly  scorned  for  it. 

"  But  what  a  girl  it  is !  "  cried  Beatrice.  "  Poke, 
poke,  poke  at  a  fire  that  even  your  conscience  couldn't 
prod  into  burning  a  fly ;  and  let  a  regular  conflagration — 
a  Chicago  fire — kindle  under  your  very  nose !  0  Mar 
garet  !  "  she  exclaimed  with  an  indescribable  accent  of 
despair. 

"  Why,  what  in  the  world  have  I  done  ?  "  asked  Mar 
garet. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  have  done  it  yet ;  but  if 
you  haven't,  it's  his  character  rather  than  your  careful 
ness  that's  to  be  thanked  for  it.  You  remember  what  I 
used  to  tell  you  before — before  the  other  day.  You 
wouldn't  believe  it  then.  You  wouldn't  tell  him,  or  let 
him  tell  him,  of  your  engagement.  But  I've  seen  it  going 
on  this  five  weeks.  A  week  ago  it  mightn't  have  been 
plain  to  a  girl  whose  modesty  won't  let  her  believe  that 
she  can  matter  to  anybody.  But  even  to  her  it  must  be 
plain  now.  Maggie !  Surely  you've  seen  ! " 

They  were  seated  in  the  room  above  the  parlour  in 
Beatrice's  little  two-story  house.  Beatrice  was  running  a 
long  seam  on  a  pinafore  of  green  gingham  for  her  baby, 
and,  bent  over  the  sewing-machine,  in  this  motherly  oc 
cupation,  and  delivering  herself  of  these  sagacities,  the 
air  of  matronly  wisdom  seemed  to  have  descended  upon 
her. 

•  When  Margaret  took  her  meaning,  after  a  moment, 
the  shame  of  it  seemed  as  bad  as  the  newspaper  article — 
worse,  indeed,  for  of  that  she  had  read  only  a  dozen  lines, 
which  it  was  possible  to  forget ;  but  of  this  she  tasted  the 
entire  ignominy.  She  did  not  know  what  to  say.  She 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

wanted  to  fall  on  Deed's  shoulder,  and  to  beg  his  protec 
tion  from  such  thoughts.  Why  was  he  not  here  to  shield 
her  from  them  ?  But  her  next  reflection  was  for  Ernfield. 

"  Beatrice  ! "  she  cried.     "  I  wonder  at  you ! " 

"  I  thought  you  would,"  Beatrice  answered  calmly. 
"  But  it  is  really  time,  dear,  I  made  you  wonder.  I  often 
try  to  fancy  what  such  people  as  I  can  be  made  for,  you 
know,  Maggie.  But  I  never  wonder  when  I  am  with  you. 
It's  our  business  to  cut  a  path  for  the  feet  of  people  like 
you,  who  are  made  to  walk  with  their  heads  in  the 
clouds." 

"It's  an  insult  to  him!"  breathed  Margaret,  irrele 
vantly. 

"  Of  course ;  and  an  indignity  to  you,  and  an  open 
affront  to  Mr.  Deed.  Don't  imagine  I  don't  know  that. 
But  it's  necessary  to  say  it,  all  the  same." 

"  How  can  you  think  such  a  thing  of  him  ? "  cried 
Margaret,  indignantly.  She  was  scarlet.  She  put  back  the 
lock  that  habitually  strayed  into  her  eyes  with  a  gesture 
of  self-control,  and  went  on  with  the  crocheting  on  which 
she  was  engaged. 

"  Dear  Maggie,  he  is  only  a  man,"  returned  Beatrice, 
convincingly.  k'  What  makes  you  think  him  so  different 
from  other  men  ?  " 

"  Because  he  is,  I  think,  for  one  reason,"  Margaret  re 
turned,  studying  attentively  the  baby  sack  she  was  making 
for  Beatrice,  for  a  lost  stitch.  "  But  if  he  were  ever  so 
like,  it  would  not  be  cause  to  suppose  him  capable  of 
such — "  She  paused  inconclusively,  and  bent  her  eyes 
upon  the  work  again.  It  had  been  a  fortunate  resource 
since  she  had  been  unable  to  fix  her  mind  on  reading  or 
any  of  her  usual  occupations.  One  could  think,  one  could 
10 


144:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

even  be  as  miserable  as  one  liked,  or  as  one  must,  while 
one  crocheted.  "  You  seem  to  forget,  Beatrice,"  she  went 
on  quietly,  after  a  moment,  "  that  he  is  very  ill — dying, 
perhaps,  and  that  I  am — "  She  did  not  know  how  to 
say  what  she  was. 

"  Why,  you  dear,  crazy,  heavenly-minded,  impractical 
thing ! "  cried  Beatrice,  trying  not  to  laugh.  "  Since 
when  did  men  love  women  less  when  they  were  ill  ?  The 
people  who  are  most  against  woman — who  won't  have  her 
on  any  terms — agree  that  she  is  a  famous  nurse  !  0  Mag 
gie  ! "  she  exclaimed,  at  a  look  of  deep  pain  on  Margaret's 
face,  "  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean  only  that  men  are  just 
as  capable  of  falling  in  love  with  a  woman  on  a  death-bed 
as  on  horseback,  or  on  a  front  piazza,  in  the  bloom  of 
health.  What  has  that  to  do  with  it?  And  as  to  your 
other  objection,  it's  just  no  objection  at  all.  He  can't 
know  that  you  hold  yourself  no  less  bound  to — to  him  be 
cause — because  of  things.  He  can't  be  expected  to  im 
agine  that  you  are  abhorring  him  and  being  loyal  to  him 
in  a  breath.  Come  !  Be  fair,  Margaret !  You  must  own 
that  there  is  no  reason  why  the  man  shouldn't  have  tum 
bled  into  love  with  you.  The  next  thing  is  to  rescue  him." 

"  If  you  mean  that  I  am  to  show  him  by  my  manner 
that  I  know  him  to  have  such  a  feeling,  if  you  mean  that 
I  am  to  insult  him,  I'm  sure  you  must  know  I  could  never 
do  it.  To  think  it  would  be  bad  enough ;  and  I  don't 
think  it.  To  give  an  idea  like  that  the  sanction  of  a  word, 
a  silence,  a  look — Beatrice  ! "  she  cried,  in  an  indescribable 
tone  of  injury,  "  there  are  things  which  even  you  must  not 
say ! "  She  went  on  with  her  crocheting  in  silence  ;  the 
quiet,  steady  little  push  of  her  forefinger,  as  it  ran  along 
the  needle  and  caught  the  stitch,  seemed,  for  the  moment, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  145 

the  embodiment  of  her  sober  view  of  life.  Beatrice  re 
mained  quelled,  but  unconvinced. 

Margaret's  judiciousness  could  not  keep  a  certain 
change  out  of  her  manner  toward  him,  of  course,  when 
he  came  again.  Beatrice,  though  she  had  retired  from 
the  contest  defeated,  had  contrived  to  poison  her  thought 
of  him  with  consciousness.  But  it  was  pleasant  to  see  that 
he  seemed  to  have  no  sense  of  the  change. 

Ernfield  continued  to  come,  and  Margaret  allowed  her 
self  without  a  prick  of  conscience  to  look  forward  more 
and  more  to  the  cheer  he  brought  into  the  desolate  days 
on  which  she  had  fallen.  It  was  certainly  true  that  Mar 
garet  always  saw  her  own  point  of  view  so  plainly,  and 
was  so  simply  faithful  to  it,  that  she  was  in  danger  of 
reckoning  too  confidently  upon  the  counterpart  of  her  own 
feeling  in  another.  It  was  at  least  a  faith  that  any  one 
understanding  it  must  have  abused  with  reluctance  ;  and 
in  so  far  she  was  protected  by  her  very  rashness.  But 
Beatrice  was  probably  on  unassailable  ground  in  thinking 
it  the  reverse  of  worldly  wise. 

Yet  if  Margaret  had  been  bothered  by  two  consciences 
about  him,  instead  of  feeling  quite  free  with  her  one,  her 
need  for  distraction  from  the  gnawing  of  her  thoughts 
must  have  been  equally  real  and  equally  irresistible.  She 
could  not  turn  over  in  her  mind  the  scene  with  Deed  on 
that  morning  quite  every  moment  in  the  day.  She  must 
have  gone  mad  if  no  diversion  had  offered  from  the  circle 
in  which  she  had  come  to  argue  about  her  conduct  on  her 
wedding-day.  Sometimes,  in  desperation,  she  would  go 
into  Maverick  with  Beatrice — the  Vertners  lived  just  out 
side  the  town — and  wait  about  while  Beatrice  did  her 
marketing.  She  still  hesitated  before  the  thought  of  re- 


146  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

turning  the  calls  which  had  been  made  upon  her,  in  her 
capacity  of  stranger,  during  the  month  preceding  her 
wedding-day.  When  she  said  she  did  not  care  what  peo 
ple  said,  she  exaggerated  as  little  as  any  one  who  has  made 
that  hardy  statement  can  ever  have  done  ;  but  she  owned 
to  herself  that,  just  at  first,  she  could  not  like  to  court  the 
questions,  and  the  polite  and  indirect,  but  not  the  less 
rasping,  comment  that  she  must  meet  if  she  made  these 
calls. 

It  was  different  with  Dorothy,  who  had  reached  Mav 
erick  after  that  fatal  day,  and  might  be  supposed  not  to  be 
privy  to  her  shame.  Of  course  Margaret  knew  that  she 
must  know ;  but  it  was  quite  possible  between  them  to 
sustain  the  convention  that  she  didn't.  Dorothy  would 
sometimes  come  to  the  house,  as  they  became  better 
friends,  and  sit  for  an  hour  or  more  accepting  Beatrice's 
advice  about  arranging  the  house  they  had  taken,  while 
she  was  really  listening  to  Margaret's  silence.  Sometimes 
she  would  find  Margaret  alone,  and  would  make  certain 
modest  and  doubtful  advances.  She  liked  her  without 
being  sure  she  understood  her.  They  exchanged  many 
confidences  short  of  the  real  ones.  They  never  spoke  of 
Deed,  of  course. 

Maurice  had  preached  a  trial  sermon,  and  was  staying 
on  at  Maverick  in  the  hope  of  receiving  a  call  to  the  pul 
pit  of  St.  John's. 

Ernfield  did  not  cease  to  be  a  question  between  Bea 
trice  and  Margaret ;  but  it  was  not  until  Margaret  ac 
cepted  an  invitation  from  him  to  ride  up  Ute  Pass  with 
him,  that  Beatrice  definitively  washed  her  hands  of  her. 

Ernfield  and  Margaret  skirted  the  town,  and  directed 
their  horses  towards  the  gulch  that  opened  beyond  the 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  147 

railway  round-house  between  the  small,  bare  red  hills  that 
lay  just  without  the  limits  of  Maverick  to  the  north. 
These  hills,  which  rose  from  the  plain  abruptly,  cut  off 
the  view  of  the  great  mountains  behind  them  unless  one 
climbed  to  their  summits,  when  the  horizon  was  seen  to 
be  populous  with  snow-peaks. 

The  town,  after  they  had  passed  out  of  the  narrow 
belt  that  was  really  "  city,"  and  which  was  densely  popu 
lated  by  as  many  as  five  families  to  the  acre,  strayed  lack 
adaisically  along  their  road,  until  it  reached  the  edge  of 
the  hills,  where  it  paused  at  an  Irishman's  cabin  so  sud 
denly  that,  after  turning  the  first  curve  leading  into  the 
ravine,  Ernfield  and  Margaret  seemed  to  themselves  as 
much  alone  as  if  Maverick  were  not  engaged  in  rustling 
for  the  mighty  dollar  just  around  the  bend. 

The  bridle-path,  followed  by  their  ponies  at  a  canter, 
turned  with  the  windings  of  the  ravine,  at  the  bottom  of 
which  a  stream  might  once  have  run.  The  rocks,  rising 
in  varicoloured  masses  to  the  high,  brown  hills  above  their 
heads,  would  sometimes  fall  back,  and  leave  a  space  a 
hundred  yards  wide  or  more,  in  which  the  grass  grew 
rankly,  but  not  greenly,  in  the  manner  of  the  herbage  of 
the  "West.  In  the  early  morning  it  had  seemed  cold 
enough  for  snow ;  but  that  was  no  hindrance  to  weather 
which  habitually  takes  the  Indian  summer  bit  between  its 
teeth  just  after  breakfast  every  morning  and  makes  a 
break  for  the  sparkle,  the  keenness,  the  unfailing  sunni- 
ness  of  the  typical  Colorado  day.  It  was  December,  but 
in  the  sun  at  this  hour  it  seemed  like  a  day  in  June. 

Half  an  hour  after  they  had  entered  the  ravine  their 
horses  stood  upon  a  height.  The  path  wound  up  to  this 
point  out  of  the  gulch  on  its  way  to  the  pass.  Indeed, 


148  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

this  was  the  beginning  of  what  was  known  as  the  pass — a 
road  between  the  hills,  which  if  one  followed  it  far  enough 
and  high  enough  would  bring  one  to  Colorado  Springs. 
They  were  on  the  summit  of  the  first  considerable  rise  of 
the  foot-hills  towards  the  mountains,  and  their  station 
commanded  the  beautiful  valley  in  the  centre  of  which 
Maverick  spread  its  shabby  architecture  and  sprawling 
design.  Behind,  at  their  feet,  lay  a  small  park,  into 
which  the  hills  dipped  from  all  sides,  and  through  the 
midst  of  which  a  thready  brook  ran.  Margaret,  who  had 
seen  nothing  so  vast  as  this  bewildering  prospect,  run 
ning  on  all  sides  to  the  horizon,  caught  her  breath  at  the 
expanse. 

The  sunshine,  bathing  with  an  enchanting  radiance 
the  tops  of  the  white  peaks  far  on  the  thither  side  of  the 
valley,  danced  above  the  plain  on  which  Maverick  sat. 
The  kindling  air  that  breathed  about  them  on  their 
height  seemed,  as  always  in  Colorado,  to  be  drinking  the 
sunshine  and  making  it  part  of  its  substance,  as  one  is 
sure  the  nobler  wines  must  have  done,  in  their  grape 
days. 

In  this  atmosphere  everything  was  seen  afresh,  and 
Margaret  found  all  her  thoughts  of  the  time  since  she  had 
parted  with  Deed  discovering  themselves  in  new  aspects, 
as  she  and  Ernfield  looked  out  on  this  great  world — this 
world  thrilled  with  its  own  silence.  In  the  face  of  the 
boundless  light  and  air  and  earth,  and  the  limitless  sweet 
ness  of  the  sunlight,  her  world,  too,  seemed  large  and 
serene  again. 

"  We  talk  of  dying  when  we  are  sorry,"  she  said  to 
him.  "  Suppose  we  should  be  taken  at  our  word,  and  re 
member  too  late  that  this  is  life.  Whoa,  pony ! "  She 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  149 

leaned  over  and  patted  the  restive  animal's  neck.  She 
circled  the  hills  with  her  eyes  as  she  looked  up  again.  "  I 
believe  I  am  accustomed  to  think  that  all  the  hard  things 
are  the  real  life ;  and  I've  been  sure  of  it  lately."  The 
tacit  reference  to  her  trouble  escaped  her  unconsciously. 
"  But  when  one  sees  things  like  this,  one  is  not  sure." 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Ernfield.  "  I  should  think  one 
might  be  sure  they  are  not.  The  other  things  are  nearer 
— the  miseries  and  pains  and  disappointments ;  and  I  sup 
pose  they  keep  tugging  at  every  one's  skirts,  and  crying 
that  they  are  life.  But  it's  an  awful  whopper,  you  may  be 
sure.  If  they  are,  the  moon  is  our  day,  and  the  sun  is  the 
dead  body." 

lie  alighted  to  tighten  the  cinch  of  his  saddle;  the 
pony  went  through  a  series  of  obstructive  manoeuvres  that 
gave  pause  to  the  conversation  for  a  few  moments. 

"  I  wish  I  could  be  as  confident,"  said  Margaret  when 
the  animal  was  still.  "  But  the  things  you  speak  of,  Dr. 
Ernfield — don't  you  see  that  in  one  fashion  or  another 
they  are  so  many  ways  of  disabusing  us  of  our  cozy  conceit 
that  personal  happiness  is  the  main  affair  ?  And  that,  at 
least,  we  must  be  sure  is  not  true.  Can  the  wretchedness 
through  which  we  learn  that  the  world  is  not  a  contrivance 
for  ministering  to  our  self-love,  but  has  other  business  in 
hand,  such  as  crushing  it,  for  example,  be  anything  but 
very  right  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  suppose  not,"  returned  Ernfield,  smiling ;  "  but 
how  about  the  pink  light  on  Ouray  over  there?  Isn't  that 
right  too  ?  "  He  shook  his  head.  "  I  shall  never  believe, 
Miss  Derwenter,  that  the  sun  in  eclipse  is  the  normal 
thing.  I  have  an  endless  faith — since  you  speak  of  con 
trivances—that  the  sun  was  mainly  invented  for  shining 


150  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

purposes ;  and  I'm  sure  we  weren't  meant  to  grudge  our 
selves  its  shining." 

"  Perhaps,"  murmured  Margaret.  "  Perhaps  ! "  Then, 
after  a  moment,  she  added,  "  You  have  a  cheerful  view  of 
life,  Dr.  Ernfield." 

Ernfield  laughed.  "  Rather  necessary,  don't  you  think  ? 
I've  not  enough  left  to  waste  in  quibbles."  It  was  the 
first  time  that  he  had  referred  to  his  condition. 

"  Don't  say  that,"  she  begged.  "  You  are  going  to  get 
well.  Since  you  talk  of  not  grudging  ourselves  the  sun's 
shining,  you  mustn't  grudge  yourself  that  certainty.  It 
has  to  be.  Surely  we  have  not  all  the  responsibilitie.s. 
And  would  it  not  be  a  shameful  thing  to  believe  that  all 
your — your  helpfulness  and  strength,  Dr.  Ernfield  (I  must 
speak  plainly  if  I  speak  at  all,  you  see),  should  be  taken 
from  the  world,  while  there  are  so  many  thousand  drones 
and  incapables  left  to  go  instead,  and  so  many  thousand 
tired  bodies  and  minds  left  behind  to  weary  for  the  help 
that  you  might  give  them  ?  I  can't  believe  that,  Dr.  Ern 
field,  any  more  than  you  can  believe  what — what  you  were 
just  saying,"  she  concluded,  with  a  sense  of  having  said 
too  much,  yet  with  a  pleasure  in  having  let  him  know  her 
feeling. 

"  Why,  what  an  abandoned  moralist  you  are,  Miss 
Derwenter ! " 

He  caught  his  rein  upon  his  arm,  and  made  his  pony 
stand  where  he  could  tighten  the  cinch  on  her  saddle,  as 
he  said  :  "  Who  was  it  who  was  saying  a  moment  ago  that 
the  teaching  of  life  seemed  to  be  that  it  did  not  exist  for 
us?  And  here  you  would  have  me  flatter  myself  with  the 
old  fiction  that  I — that  any  man — can  count,  that  fate 
ought  to  clap  its  eye  on  me  and  save  me  forthwith  to  be  a 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  151 

comfort  to  the  world's  declining  years.  The  world  will 
decline  nicely,  thank  you,  Avithout  me — aren't  you  sure  of 
that?" 

His  head  was  down  against  the  pony's  side,  as  he  gave 
the  cinch  the  final  twist.  Pulling  up  a  cinch  takes  the 
breath.  But  she  fancied  the  long  inspiration  he  drew,  as 
he  exclaimed  "  There  !  "  and  put  the  strap,  at  the  end  of 
the  cinch  through  the  last  ring,  was  more  like  a  sigh. 

"  And  besides,"  he  went  on,  after  a  moment,  "  there's 
a  thing  or  so  to  be  said  in  favour  of  death.  I  wonder  the 
poets  don't  try  to  say  it  more,  instead  of  gasping  before  it 
in  the  craven  rhymes  that  seem  to  please  them  so  awfully. 
It's  a  pity,  I  grant  you,  that  other  people  have  to  die ;  but 
I  never  could  see  why  it  should  be  so  intolerable  a  thought 
to  one's  self.  I  mean,  of  course,  if  you  have  a  certain 
thought  about  death,"  he  added  gravely — "  the  Christian's 
thought,  I  suppose  we  should  call  it." 

"  But — "  she  began,  and  stopped  impotently. 

"  Ah,  yes,"  he  owned  ;  "  I  admit  the  '  but.'  The  slow 
ignominy  of  this  stupid  trouble  of  mine,  you  were  going 
to  say — the  creeping  weakness.  It's  true.  I  should  have 
chosen  a  great  deal  better  if  I'd  arranged  my  own  way  of 
going :  any  one  who  knows  what  a  luxurious  dog  I  am 
down  at  the  bottom  of  my  shirking  heart  would  believe 
that  of  me,  I  hope.  But  I  wasn't  asked."  He  glanced  at 
her  with  a  smile.  "  No,  no  ! "  exclaimed  he,  as  she  opened 
her  lips  to  reply ;  "  don't  try  to  deny  it  for  me.  It's  very 
good  of  you ;  but  it's  no  use,  you  know.  I  am  a  physician. 
I  don't  deceive  myself.  If  I  could  only  believe  in  your 
denial,  you  know,  I  should  be  glad  enough  to  let  you  deny 
it  for  me  by  the  hour.  Or  rather,  I  should  be  glad  to 
have  you  affirm  the  other  thing  for  me.  To  affirm,"  he 


152  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

said  dreamily ;  "  it's  the  only  thing  in  the  least  worth 
while." 

Margaret  hesitated  a  moment.  Then  she  said  shyly : 
"  Do  you  know,  Dr.  Ernfield,  I  believe  that  is  what  has 
worn  you  out — affirming  for  other  people.  Nervous 
prostration — it's  a  kind  of  physical  agnosticism,  don't  you 
think  ?  It  seems  as  if  we  didn't  even  believe  in  our  own 
bodies  any  more." 

"  You  are  at  least  twice  too  acute  for  comfort,  Miss 
Derwenter,"  he  said,  smiling.  "  My  breakdown  wasn't 
due  to  anything  so  amiable.  It  was  really  because  I 
hadn't  the  temperance  to  stop  there.  The  habit  of 
absolute  power  is  an  irresistible  one,  I  suppose.  It  made 
a  despot  of  me,  I  know ;  and  whatever  my  subjects  might 
tell  you  of  their  awful  case,— for  I  assure  you  I  showed 
no  pity, — it  is  an  exhausting  thing  to  be  a  despot." 

"  What  nonsense  ! "     She  smiled. 

"  No,  no  ! "  he  disclaimed :  "  it's  only  right  that  my 
beastly  satisfaction  with  myself  should  be  taken  down  a 
peg  or  two.  I  accept  this  as  my  punishment."  Margaret's 
lips  framed  a  sound ;  but  he  stopped  her.  "  No ;  it's 
not  gammon,  what  I  tell  you.  It's  fact.  I  was  out 
rageous  about  the  whole  business.  I  was  young  when  I 
began,  and  I  had  a  little  success  quite  soon.  It  made  me 
sure — infernally,  intolerably  sure.  I  led  my  patients  a 
devil  of  a  life.  Don't  think  I'm  inventing.  That  would 
be  too  shameful.  Any  of  them  would  tell  you  as  much — 
even  those  I  have  done  something  for ;  those  more  than 
the  others,  perhaps.  Oh,  I  was  a  brute.  Miss  Derwenter, 
whatever  you  think.  But  I've  got  my  pay.  It's  wearing 
being  a  brute."  lie  smiled  at  her ;  but  she  saw  that  he 
was  in  deadly  earnest. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  153 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  were,  of  course,  Dr.  Ernfield," 
she  said  simply,"  though  I  don't  believe  you  were  any 
thing  like  that.  Only  one  thing  is  clear  to  me — you  must 
live  to  be  more  of  the  same  sort." 

He  bit  his  lip,  and  turned  his  head  that  she  might  not 
see  his  face.  "  I  assure  you,"  he  said  huskily,  "  you  must 
stop  wishing  me  so  well,  Miss  Derwenter.  I'm  not  worthy 
of  it.  If  I  were,  I  should  be  able  to  bear  it  better." 

The  too  ready  tears  started  to  Margaret's  eyes.  "  What 
shall  I  wish  for  you,  then  ?  "  she  asked.  "  I  will  wish  any 
thing  you  like." 

"  Wish  the  impossible,  please.  That  is  the  only  thing 
that  can  do  me  the  slightest  good.  Wish  me  the  man  I 
was  six  months  ago  ;  wish  me  the  love  of  the  only  person 
who  matters.  Come,  don't  be  close,  Miss  Derwenter! 
Wish  the  never- will-be  for  me !  I  might  get  well  on  the 
mere  hope  of  it ! " 

"  Do  you  mean — ?  " 

"  Oh,  mean  ! "  he  cried.  I  don't  mean  to  be  rude,  for 
one  thing." 

"  No,  no  !  "  exclaimed  Margaret,  her  face  full  of  ear 
nestness  ;  "  I  only  meant  to  say — "  She  had  not  an  idea 
what  she  had  meant  to  say. 

"The  kindest  and  sweetest  thing  you  could  invent. 
Great  heaven !  don't  I  know  that  ?  And  don't  I  loathe 
myself  for  letting  you  even  think  it  for  me !  " 

He  glanced  suddenly  at  her  face,  and  saw  the  tears  in 
her  eyes.  He  bit  his  lips ;  an  inrush  of  emotion  mastered 
him.  The  uncommon  mood  in  which  the  expression  of 
feelings  habitually  restrained  had  left  him  was  defenceless 
before  the  impulse  of  love  which  sprang  up  in  him  at 
sight  of  the  sweet  tumult  of  compassion  for  him  in  her 


154  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

eyes.  He  was  standing  at  her  saddle-pommel.  Her  arm 
hung  by  her  side.  He  caught  her  hand  to  his  lips  in  a 
long,  blind,  reckless  kiss.  Margaret  gave  him  a  swift, 
scared  look  as  he  relinquished  it.  Then,  gathering  her 
reins  hastily,  she  turned  the  pony  back  down  the  road 
they  had  come  up. 

"  Pride,  ignorance,  sufficiency,  folly  !  "  she  said  to  her 
self  with  smarting  eyes,  thinking  of  her  rejection  of 
Beatrice's  warning.  Must  she  always  be  so  grossly  wise  ? 
She  said  to  herself  that  Ernfield  was  not  to  blame,  and 
shrank  from  the  thought  of  him  with  terror,  in  a  breath. 
It  was  her  position — her  intolerable  no  position— that 
made  such  things  possible. 

As  Ernfield  followed  her,  she  gave  him  a  fleeting 
glance  in  which  he  read  a  reproach  that  cut  him  to  the 
heart.  He  felt  like  spurring  his  horse  over  the  edge  of  the 
precipice  along  which  they  were  riding.  But  he  decided 
to  see  her  safely  home  first.  There  were  always  precipices 
if  one  needed  them. 

He  kept  her  in  sight  with  difficulty.  She  pushed  her 
horse  down  the  steeps  at  a  pace  which  made  him  fear  for 
her.  A  single  thought  was  in  her  mind — Deed.  Her 
heart  went  out  to  him  in  a  passionate  appeal  for  shelter 
and  defense.  The  silent  loyalty  which  she  had  kept  for 
him,  in  the  midst  of  all  resentment  of  his  act,  had  leaped 
to  flame  at  the  touch  of  Ernfield's  lips ;  and  she  could  not 
think  how  she  could  live  until  she  could  stand  at  his  side 
again  where  he  could  protect  her  from  the  world  and  from 
herself.  Pride  and  bitterness  fdl  away  from  her  like 
the  properties  of  a  dream.  Her  eyes  were  wet  with 
joyous  tears. 

Ernfield  wondered  at  the  radiant  look  of  resolve  upon 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  155 

her  face  as  he  helped  her  to  alight  at  her  own  door.     She 
did  not  care  what  he  did  for  her  now. 


IX. 

DEED  was  pitching  his  effects  into  his  trunk  with 
nervous  haste.  If  he  paused  for  a  moment  to  gaze  at  the 
confused  heap,  the  ache  at  his  heart  reasserted  itself,  and 
he  turned  from  his  work,  and  went  to  stare  miserably  out 
of  the  hotel  window.  In  these  moments  he  tasted  de 
spair. 

He  had  paid  Philip.  That  was  done  with.  He  had 
made  short  work  of  his  protestations ;  he  knew  on  which 
side  to  place  him  now.  He  had  gone  Jasper's  way.  Deed 
told  himself  that  he  ought  to  be  glad.  He  might  have 
gone  on  trusting  him  as  he  had  trusted  Jasper,  until  he 
had  confided  enough  to  his  honour  to  make  the  trust  worth 
abusing;  and  a  sickening  breach  of  faith,  like  Jasper's, 
must  have  followed  in  due  course.  It  was  better  to  know 
the  worst  now.  As  he  remembered  what  the  worst  was, 
he  turned  from  the  window  dizzily,  and  sank  into  a  chair, 
groaning  aloud. 

He  no  longer  had  a  son.  The  misery  of  the  words 
filled  up  the  world's  space.  But  a  more  hateful  pain  lay 
within  the  loss — that  they  had  lost  themselves  to  him.  He 
could  have  borne  that  they  should  die — even  if  their 
deaths  had  trodden  on  each  other's  heels  as  their  falsities 
had  done.  But  that  they  should  live  as  ingrates  and 
traitors  to  his  love  was  a  pain  beyond  the  worst  that  death 
can  bring. 


156  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

What  was  it,  he  asked  himself,  as  he  sat  crouched 
miserably  in  his  chair,  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  that 
made  ingratitude  so  intolerable,  so  damnable,  so  unfor 
givable  a  thing  ?  Was  it  that  it  cut  into  the  best  of  a 
man  ?  Was  it  because  the  loving  acts  on  which  gratitude 
follows  proceed  from  the  richest,  the  tenderest,  the  secret- 
est  corners  of  a  man's  nature  that  the  agony  of  an  answer 
ing  baseness,  where  one  has  a  right  to  look  for  an  answer 
ing  love,  is  so  unendurable  ?  Of  course  it  was  a  pain  to  re 
ceive  a  blow  in  the  face,  and  doubly  a  pain  where  one 
must  rather  expect  a  kiss ;  but  did  that  explain  all  the 
degrading,  the  soul-nauseating,  horror  of  ingratitude? 
The  pang  of  it  was  part  of  the  stock  of  familiar  allusion ; 
it  must  have  been  felt  since  men  first  loved  and  served 
one  another ;  shredded  echoes  of  quotation  floated  into  his 
head  and  out  again,  as  he  sat  writhing  under  the  torture 

of  it. 

For  when  the  noble  Caesar  saw  him  stab, 

Ingratitude,  more  strong  than  traitors'  arms, 

Quite  vanquished  him  :  then  burst  his  mighty  heart ;  .  .  . 

And  Lear's  cry — he  had  never  felt  its  awful  force 

before — 

.  .  .  that  she  may  feel 

How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 
To  have  a  thankless  child  I 

Common !  Why  it  was  in  the  school  speakers !  Every 
one  had  felt  the  wound !  And  yet  none  of  all  the  mil 
lions  who  had  suffered  from  it  could  say  what  it  was — 
what  peculiar,  stinging,  maddening  touch  lay  in  it  to 
make  the  hurt  of  it  beyond  all  other  hurts.  Ah,  well, 
what  difference  could  it  make  to  them  or  him!  They 
knew  the  pain,  and  he  knew  it.  The  pain  was  enough. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  157 

He  got  up,  and  went  restlessly  about  his  packing  again. 
Where  were  the  good  hours  of  seven  days  ago  ?  he  asked 
himself,  as  he  folded  his  dress-coat.  He  smiled  sadly  for  the 
thought,  and  for  the  idea  of  taking  a  dress-coat  on  such  a 
journey.  It  was  useless  to  take  it,  but  it  was  equally  fool 
ish  to  leave  it ;  he  did  not  expect  to  return  immediately, 
and  he  did  not  wish  to  give  it  to  the  hotel  people.  He 
thought  he  should  go  on  a  long  journey,  to  Florida,  to 
Cannes,  to  Egypt, — anywhere  away  from  memory, — when 
he  had  found  the  men  at  Burro  Peak  City  who  had  once 
wanted  to  buy  the  "  Lady  Bountiful,"  and  had  made  his 
sale.  The  hotel  people  might  prove  ungrateful,  he  said 
to  himself  with  a  sorry  laugh.  "  Ungrateful ! "  he  re 
peated,  in  the  aimless  need  we  feel  to  keep  up  a  conversa 
tion  with  ourselves  when  we  are  miserable.  The  word 
flooded  his  heart  with  the  recurrent  ache ;  he  dropped  the 
coat  listlessly  into  the  tray,  and  returned  to  the  window. 
Ah,  where  was  the  man  of  those  good  hours  of  a  week 
ago?  He  remembered  vaguely  that  he  had  once  been 
happy,  as  souls  in  hell  may  recall  their  days  of  earth  :  it  was 
an  unreal  memory,  as  if  it  had  been  another's  happiness. 
Who  was  the  man  who  had  ridden  up  to  a  certain  door  in 
Maverick  a  week  before,  with  life  at  his  feet,  and  all  the 
sweet  airs  of  earth  blowing  for  him  ?  Not  he.  That  man 
had  two  sons  who  loved  him,  and  whom  he  loved. 

Deed  looked  sadly  on  the  spectacle  of  the  street, 
crowded  with  men  to  whom  life  still  meant  something — 
men  who  had  not  lost  their  sons,  perhaps,  or  had  never 
known  what  it  was  to  have  sons,  and  to  love  them  as  one's 
soul.  Why  did  they  go  up  and  down  ?  It  fatigued  his 
sight,  this  restless  motion  of  which  he  had  once  been  part 
— before  his  quarrel  with  Margaret,  before  Jasper  had 


158  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

turned  traitor,  before  Philip  had  cut  the  last  tie  that 
bound  him  to  life,  and  set  him  adrift  among  the  un 
friended  men  to  whom  nothing  matters.  What  was  it  all 
about  ?  What  was  it  for  ? 

He  remembered  that  they  lived  in  a  different  world, — 
his  world  of  a  week  ago, — and  that  they  understood  what 
it  was  all  for,  no  doubt,  as  he  would  have  understood  then. 
They  understood  ;  but  his  present  feeling  would  be  as  in 
comprehensible  to  them  as  theirs  was  to  him.  Would  he 
have  understood  it  himself  a  week  ago  ?  All  happiness 
and  unhappiness  suddenly  seemed  to  him  to  be  shut  up  to 
themselves  in  chambers  desolately  aloof  from  each  other, 
and  from  every  other  state  of  feeling.  One  sensation 
must  forever  be  as  solitary,  as  incommunicable,  as  the 
other.  The  unbearable  sense  of  loneliness  which  the 
thought  gave  him  made  him  shut  his  eyes  against  the 
sight  of  the  going  and  coming  in  the  street.  The  best 
sympathy,  he  knew,  would  be  powerless  to  guess  deeper 
than  the  outer  envelope  of  his  feeling ;  and  these  men,  if 
they  would  imagine  his  misery  ever  so  vaguely,  must  not 
merely  be  unhappy  themselves,  but  must  be  enough  like 
him  to  understand  him ;  and  he  did  not  understand 
himself. 

Could  any  of  all  the  strange  chances  that  brought  men 
to  a  mining  camp  from  the  earth's  dust-bins  and  coal 
holes,  leaving  every  colour  of  human  experience  behind 
them,  have  drawn  here  one  man  enough  like  himself  to 
understand  how,  a  week  ago,  in  the  crazy  satisfaction  of 
an  impulse  of  passion,  he  could  have  forsaken  a  happiness 
filling  and  overflowing  in  the  moment  of  his  folly  all  his 
hopes  ?  Was  there  one  who  could  do  an  incurable  wrong 
in  such  besotted  confidence  in  one  hour,  and  know  it  for 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  •    159 

what  it  was  in  the  next  ?  "With  others  did  the  remorse 
follow  instantly  upon  the  fatuity  ?  With  so  much  wisdom 
after  the  event,  did  others  find  none  before  ? 

But  he  knew  very  well  that  no  one  in  his  place  could 
have  done  Margaret  the  unforgivable  wrong  he  had  done 
her.  It  was  left  for  him  to  make  a  loving  woman,  guilty 
only  of  endeavouring  to  save  him  from  himself,  the  vic 
tim  of  an  infernal  suspicion  ;  and  upon  the  head  of  it  to 
abandon  her  on  their  wedding-day.  It  was  an  insensate 
cruelty ;  and  now  it  was  his  punishment  to  long  hope 
lessly  for  a  forgiveness  which  he  should  never  insult  her 
to  ask.  A  moment  later,  thinking  how  Margaret  would 
judge  the  expedient  he  had  been  driven  to  that  morning 
in  order  to  raise  money  to  pay  Philip,  a  sharp  doubt  of 
his  innocence  insinuated  itself,  and  he  would  have  been 
glad  to  undo  it.  But  that  was  past  praying  for ;  and  on 
the  whole,  it  was  as  safe  and  fair  as  it  seemed,  probably. 
The  $25,000  which  he  had  borrowed  at  his  bank  in  the 
morning  on  the  security  of  some  Iron  Silver  stock — part 
of  the  Brackett  estate  of  which  he  was  one  of  two  trustees 
— was  a  temporary  accommodation  from  an  estate  which 
owed  thrice  that  sum  to  his  care,  and  one  which  could 
cost  it  nothing.  If  he  could  have  sold  his  Burro  Peak 
mine,  the  "  Lady  Bountiful,"  in  Leadville,  he  need  not 
have  called  on  it ;  but  they  did  not  know  the  "  Lady 
Bountiful "  in  Leadville,  and  the  men  at  Burro  Peak  who 
did,  and  who  had  offered  him  $60,000  for  it  a  year  ago 
(when  he  had  refused)  were  a  four-days'  journey  from 
Leadville,  beyond  the  telegraph  and  the  railway,  beyond 
even  the  stage-coach.  As  it  was,  he  had  simply  borrowed 
$25,000  until  he  could  lay  his  hands  on  his  own  money — 
a  matter  of  ten  days,  as  he  reckoned  it.  He  couldn't  wait 
11 


160  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

ten  days  to  pay  Philip.  He  had  found  it  irksome  enough 
to  wait  for  the  opening  of  banking  hours  on  the  morrow 
of  their  quarrel ;  he  had  itched  to  have  the  money  in  his 
fingers  when  he  had  given  him  his  bitter  promise ;  and 
he  had  risen  the  next  morning  with  his  pride  engaged  to 
its  last  crazy  and  obstinate  fibre  in  the  resolve  to  keep  the 
letter  of  that  promise.  He  had  kept  it. 

He  turned  to  his  packing  once  more,  with  a  curse  for 
Jasper  on  his  lips.  In  the  little  space  of  a  week  he  had 
lost  all  that  made  life  worth  while,  and  of  all  this  devilish 
fatality  of  loss  Jasper  was  the  origin.  The  ruinous  right 
ing  of  himself  which,  in  its  endless  ramifications,  had  now 
pursued  him  to  the  last  covert  of  his  happiness — whom 
else  had  he  to  thank  for  it  but  Jasper  ?  Through  him  he 
had  been  brought  to  the  madness  which  separated  him 
from  Margaret ;  through  him  he  had  just  parted  with 
Philip  as  a  stranger ;  through  him,  worst  of  all,  he  had 
laid  himself  open  to  the  unbearable  reproach  from  which 
he  had  just  freed  himself  with  Philip,  at  a  cost  of  which 
he  preferred  not  to  think.  He  saw  all  that  had  happened 
since  the  moment  he  had  opened  Jasper's  letter  as  one 
piece  of  wretchedness,  wrong-doing,  and  shame,  and  of 
every  inch  of  it  he  saw  Jasper  as  the  author.  He  longed, 
in  the  fury  that  seized  at  the  thought,  to  lay  his  hand  on 
his  throat,  and  to  crush  out  the  life  he  had  given  him. 

But  his  helpless  rage  against  Jasper  and  Philip  ended 
always  in  a  remorseful  thought.  In  the  bitterest  pain  he 
suffered  through  their  falsity,  it  was  a  negative  mitigation 
of  his  grief  to  know  that  he  had  not  himself  to  blame. 
But  as  to  Margaret,  it  was  his  shame  and  torment  to  know 
that  his  own  act  had  lost  her  to  him.  In  this  blackest 
hour  of  his  life  he  knew  that  but  for  himself  she  might 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  161 

have  been  by.  The  single  happiness  which  might  have 
remained  to  help  him  turn  his  eyes  patiently  towards  the 
future  had  been  done  to  death  by  his  own  folly.  He 
cursed  himself. 

She  would  never  look  at  him  again.  He  knew  that. 
He  would  be  ashamed  if  she  did.  He  would  not  have 
ventured  to  lift  his  eyes  to  her  face  if  they  had  met  in 
the  street ;  yet  he  longed  for  her  presence  at  this  moment 
as  never  before.  He  would  have  gone  half  round  the 
world  for  a  touch  of  her  hand;  and  he  had  cast  away 
the  right  to  take  it  as  any  stranger  might. 

"  Fool !  fool ! "  he  roared  to  the  unanswering  air  as 
he  paced  the  room.  He  flung  his  arms  aloft  in  the  last 
abasement  of  his  misery. 

His  arms  relaxed.  He  sank  into  the  chair.  Tears 
smarted  in  his  eyes. 

Margaret,  when  she  stole  into  the  room  five  minutes 
later,  found  him  so. 


X. 

"YES,"  said  Beatrice  to  her  husband,  a  week  after 
this, — she  repeated  it  because,  after  all,  perhaps  she  was 
not  quite  sure  of  it, — "it  was  the  very  best  thing  she 
could  have  done." 

This  thought  about  Margaret's  impulsive  flight  to 
Deed,  and  her  marriage,  had  been  reached  by  a  circuitous 
route ;  but  she  clung  to  it  now.  When  Margaret  had 
come  down-stairs  with  her  bag  packed,  after  her  ride 
with  Ernfield,  and  had  asked  to  have  her  trunk  sent  after 
her  to  the  station,  Beatrice  had  not  discredited  herself  by 


162  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

a  question.  She  divined,  in  the  moment  of  pause  which 
she  suffered  to  elapse  before  she  spoke,  just  what  had 
happened,  and  all  the  feeling  that  was  making  a  tumult 
in  Margaret's  breast  at  the  moment,  and  casting  her  into 
Deed's  arms ;  and  after  an  awful  moment  of  reflection,  in 
which  she  reconciled  herself  to  the  odious  surrender 
which  Margaret  was  making,  and  taught  herself  to  like 
it,  and  then  to  delight  in  it, — particularly  to  delight  in  it 
as  the  act  of  Margaret, — she  fell  upon  her  neck.  She  said 
-it  was  the  best,  the  wisest,  the  most  womanly,  uncharac 
teristic,  human,  every-day  thing  that  Margaret  had  ever 
done,  and  that  she  deserved  a  triple  kiss  of  farewell  and 
approval. 

She  had  her  qualms  when  she  had  gone.  Her  jealousy 
for  the  integrity  of  the  unassailable,  the  righteous,  posi 
tion  which  Margaret  had  maintained  since  the  event — 
which  would  have  crushed  another  woman — returned 
upon  her  with  a  rush ;  and  it  suddenly  seemed  wholly 
wrong — what  she  had  done  ? 

It  had  all  been  a  burning  matter  with  Beatrice  since 
it  had  happened.  She  had  felt  more  than  she  could  ever 
say  about  it.  If  she  had  said  everything  she  thought,  she 
would  have  said  that  a  man  who  could  do  what  Deed  had 
done  deserved  forgiveness  at  no  woman's  hands.  Of 
course  any  woman  would  forgive  him  if  she  loved  him ; 
but  that  was  another  matter.  If  he  was  to  be  forgiven, 
however,  surely  he  should  come  suing  for  pardon  on  his 
knees.  In  this  light  it  became  something  perilously  like 
a  point  of  honour,  involving  the  whole  sex,  that  Margaret 
should  not  be  the  first  to  seek  a  reconciliation. 

Beatrice  simply  could  not  bear  to  think  that,  without 
any  merit  or  motion  on  his  part,  he  should  win  back  a 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  163 

happiness  which  he  had  not  deserved.  But  she  saw  that, 
after  all,  this  did  not  count.  If  women  went  into  the 
question  of  men's  deserts,  where  would  they  bring  up? 
It  was  the  wrong  way  of  approaching  the  question  alto 
gether.  The  right  way  was  one  which  she  explained  to 
her  husband,  who  smiled  at  her  over  his  lifted  coffee- 
cup — they  were  at  breakfast — when  she  made  known  to 
him  the  conclusion  at  which  she  liad  finally  arrived  about 
Margaret. 

"  How  is  it  the  best  thing  she  could  have  done  ?  "  he 
demanded.  "  She  didn't  do  it  on  your  advice,  Trix,"  he 
said,  with  a  twinkling  eye. 

"  I  don't  care,"  returned  Beatrice,  valiantly.  "  She 
did  right,  if  there  was  any  right  left  to  do  in  such  a  case. 
It  was  the  womanly  thing  to  do." 

"  Yes,"  owned  Vertner,  "  it  was  the  weak  thing." 
"To  be  sure, "assented  Beatrice,  accepting  this  version 
of  her  meaning  courageously;  "and  that's  its  strong 
point."  Vertner  laughed.  "No;  but  I  mean  it,"  per 
sisted  his  wife.  "In  the  dreadful  situations  women  are 
always  getting  into  since  they  took  to  masterfulness  and 
self-sufficiency,  there's  just  one  way  out  that's  sure  to  be 
right ;  and  that's  the  weak  way." 

"  When  in  doubt  throw  away  all  your  trumps." 
"  When  in  doubt  be  a  woman.  Of  course  she  aban 
doned  her  position.  She  threw  away  all  her  advantage. 
But  her  advantage  was  really  too  great — don't  you  see? 
she  had  to  get  rid  of  it.  It  was  a  bother.  I  suppose 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  more  in  the  right  than  you 
know  what  to  do  with.  It  didn't  make  her  happy,  and  it 
must  always  have  kept  him  from  making  the  advance.  I 
see  that  now.  I  used  to  want  him  to  grovel.  But  I 


164  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

don't  see  that  it  would  have  done  her  any  real  good.  It 
would  have  been  a  poor  victory  at  best ;  and  what  she  has 
done,  if  she  has  done  it  in  the  way  I  suppose  she  has, 
would  be  a  triumph." 

"  Oh,  you  needn't  trouble  yourself  to  mention  that 
when  a  woman  does  do  the  magnanimous,  a  man  is  winc 
ing  for  it  somewhere.  I  believe  you." 

"  Hush,  Ned !  You  know  she  acted  from  the  purest 
motives." 

"Nonsense,  my  dear!  You  wouldn't  go  and  accuse 
any  woman  of  pure  motives,  I  hope — pure  and  simple  mo 
tives.  Let  us  admit  that  she  acted  from  the  purest  adulr 
terated  motives  possible.  It's  a  handsome  admission." 

Beatrice  was  silent.  She  was  thinking  of  something 
else.  "  I  don't  know,"  she  said,  after  a  moment,  doubt 
fully,  "  whether  I  quite  like  the  mere  act  of  her  return  to 
Mr.  Deed.  But  that  was  inevitable;  and  I've  always 
thought  that  it's  a  mistake  that  we  ought  to  leave  to  men 
to  be  deterred  by  the  look  of  an  act.  Don't  you  know, 
Ned  ?  Nothing  seems  very  right,  let  alone  very  heroic, 
when  you  are  doing  it.  Taking  the  train,  getting  to  the 
hotel,  finding  the  number  of  his  room — I'm  afraid  she 
found  it  all  hard  because  it  must  all  have  seemed  so  small. 
She  was  doing  a  fine  thing ;  and  there  ought  to  have  been 
some  very  good  music  by  a  concealed  orchestra,  scenery 
by  the  best  artists,  and  electric  lights.  Don't  you  think 
so?  But  when  they  were  in  each  other's  arms,  and  for 
giving  each  other  everything,  and  agreeing  to  forget  that 
they  had  ever  tried  to  forget  each  other,  or  do  without 
each  other,  aren't  you  sure  that  she  saw  that  it  was  the 
right  thing  to  do  even  if  it  was  the  weak  thing,  and  the 
absurd  tiling,  and  the — " 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  165 

"  Crawfish  thing  ?  "  suggested  Vertner.  "  I  don't  know. 
You  wouldn't  be  up  to  any  such  game,  Trix." 

"  I  shouldn't  have  got  into  the  situation  originally. 
But  if  I  had—" 

"You  would  have  done  me  up  with  a  weakness  to 
which  Mrs.  Deed's  was  hearty." 

"  Well,  it  would  have  been  a  different  kind.  I  should 
have  tried  to  select  something  that  you  would  under 
stand." 

"  Thanks.     And  do  you  suppose  Deed  understands  ?  " 

"  I'm  sure  he  does.  No  woman  would  do  such  a  thing 
for  a  man  who  she  was  not  sure  would  understand.  He 
would  understand,  and  would  be  humbled  into  the  dust 
by  it." 

"  And  you  picture  her  spending  the  years  to  come  con 
soling  him  for  the  humiliation  her  brilliant  weakness  has 
caused — dusting  him  off  ?  " 

"  I  picture  them  both  as  very  happy,"  returned  Beatrice, 
with  dignity.  Her  husband  laughed. 

When  Vertner  came  home  to  their  one  o'clock  dinner, 
she  perceived  by  the  look  on  his  face  that  he  had  heard 
something  which  he  did  not  mean  to  tell  her. 

"  What  makes  you  like  this  business,  Trix  ?  "  he  asked 
her,  abruptly,  as  if  they  had  not  discussed  the  question. 

"  Don't  you  ?  "  she  asked,  with  quick  suspicion.  Like 
a  good  wife,  she  kept  a  rational  scorn  for  her  husband's 
ideas  about  certain  things — the  sort  of  things  which  only 
women  understood  ;  but  she  had  a  respect  for  his  percep 
tions  about  character.  As  Vertner  said,  he  lived  "  by  siz 
ing  people  up,"  and  couldn't  afford  to  make  mistakes — 
and,  at  the  moment,  she  had  a  still  greater  respect  for  his 
news. 


166  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  I  like  my  bread  and  butter  better,"  said  Vertner  non- 
commitally,  biting  delicately  at  a  mushroom. 

It  was  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Vertner  household 
that  their  table,  in  the  face  of  every  sort  of  obstacle,  main 
tained  an  almost  Eastern  decency  and  good  cheer.  As 
Vertner  told  Beatrice,  they  "  would  have  fresh  artichokes 
if  they  had  to  buy  up  all  the  canned  goods  in  Maverick  to 
find  'em."  In  a  country  where  every  one  lived  by  grace  of 
the  tin  can,  the  Vertners  did  not  manage  their  good  table 
without  the  use  of  an  energy,  ardour,  and  inventive  skill 
which  would  have  gone  a  long  way  in  felling  the  forests 
of  a  hardier  sort  of  pioneering.  Vertner  did  not  leave  it 
all  to  his  wife ;  he  had  studied  household  providing  since 
his  marriage,  as  he  studied  a  number  of  other  unrelated 
and  unexpected  things.  In  most  of  the  other  things  he, 
more  or  less  remotely,  "  saw  a  dollar  " ;  but  in  this  he  saw 
an  instinct  for  propriety,  for  excellence,  for  "having 
things  right,"  as  he  called  it,  which  did  not  follow  him 
always  into  other  departments. 

"  0  Ned,  do  let  us  have  something  free  from  your 
wretched  mighty  dollar."  There  was  the  weariness  in  her 
tone  which  implies  an  old  and  hopeless  subject  between 
man  and  wife.  "  What  can  there  be  in  Margaret's  mar 
riage  to  affect  the  price  of  corner  lots  ?  " 

She  would  not  have  been  the  loyal  wife  to  him  she  was 
if,  in  accepting  him,  she  had  not  accepted,  without  pre 
meditation,  the  larger  half  of  his  theories.  But  even  when 
she  talked  unconsciously  in  the  too  alluring,  too  natural, 
slang,  which  was  so  native  to  the  life  he  led,  and  either  so 
shockingly  or  so  admirably  expressive  of  it  (she  was  not 
always  sure  which),  she  was  sorrowfully  conscious  of  her 
reserves.  She  might  easily  have  nagged  him  with  them, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  16? 

but  not  merely  her  good  sense,  but  a  feeling  of  obligation 
to  his  honesty  in  having  told  her  as  much  of  his  way  of 
life  as  a  man  can  convey  to  the  woman  who  has  not  yet 
married  him,  withheld  her.  She  could  not  say  that  she 
had  not  been  warned.  Yet,  in  her  young  girl's  ideals 
there  had  never  been  any  arrangement  made  for  trimming 
her  life  by  the  market  for  her  husband's  new  scheme. 
There  was  always  a  new  scheme  in  the  Vertner  household, 
and  they  had  it  for  breakfast,  dinner,  and  supper. 

"  Corner  lots  are  all  right,"  said  Vertner.  "  The 
trouble  is  deeper  down.  Deed  has  left  me  with  a  flooded 
mine  on  my  hands.  If  he  had  stayed  where  he  was,  I 
could  have  talked  him  into  that  pumping  machinery." 

"  Then  I'm  glad  he  didn't.  You  have  enough  mines, 
Ned,"  said  she.  It  was  the  kind  of  inapposite  wisdom 
which  does  not  torment  a  man  less  for  being  based  upon 
a  feeling  to  which  he  partly  assents,  and  not  at  all  on  the 
facts  which  he  knows  contradict  it: 

"  Have  I  ?  I  sha'n't  have  enough  mines,  my  dear, 
until  one  of  them  is  a  money-maker.  I've  got  too  many 
holes  in  the  ground ;  but  I'm  mighty  short  of  mines. 
This  one  I'm  working  with  Deed — or  should  be  if  I  was — 
has  a  vein  in  sight  that — "  He  went  on  to  tell  her  the 
seductive  story  of  the  assay,  and  of  the  wealth  at  their 
feet,  to  which  she  had  listened  in  the  case  of  a  dozen 
other  mines.  She  knew  how  each  of  these  other  mines 
had  turned  out,  and  he  knew ;  but  there  is  a  tameless 
sublimity  of  faith  known  to  the  man  who  has  once  owned 
a  mine,  and  to  the  man's  family,  which  acknowledges  no 
past,  and  is  as  gaily  independent  of  experience  as  the 
clouds  that  forage  the  air  for  the  other  clouds  in  which 
they  lose  themselves. 


168  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"But  where  has  Mr.  Deed  gone?"  asked  Beatrice  at 
the  end  of  his  recital,  as  enthusiastic  now  as  her  hus 
band. 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  A  man  doesn't  generally  give 
away  the  itinerary  of  his  wedding- journey  from  the  steps 
of  the  county  court-house.  Besides,  in  this  case  there 
wasn't  time.  I  don't  see  but  they  were  married  by  a 
dynamo.  Philip  and  I  were  both  in  the  hotel  office.  He 
had  just  had  his  final  row  with  his  father.  They  had 
given  each  other  that  full  material  for  the  understanding 
of  each  other's  character  so  valuable  in  family  rows  the 
night  before;  and  this  was  rather  quiet — not  actually, 
but  by  comparison.  Deed  paid  Philip  some  money  that 
he  didn't  want,  that  he  hated  and  abhorred,  and  which  he 
straightway  took  to  the  First  National  and  deposited  to 
his  father's  credit.  Those  being  the  facts,  Deed  naturally 
supposed  Philip  was  hankering  for  it,  that  he  was  basely 
longing  for  it  at  any  cost  to  him,  and  that  he  was  suspect 
ing  him  of  having  tried  to  do  him  out  of  it :  a  thoroughly 
good  misunderstanding  like  that  (without  a  fact  in  sight) 
is  just  the  basis  for  a  gorgeous  family  row.  You  know 
Deed's  temper.  It's  like  Barnum's  rarities — the  hottest, 
the  most  ungovernable,  the  most  totally  unreasonable  tem 
per  ever  seen  in  captivity.  It's  to  his  credit  that  he  does 
keep  it  in  captivity  most  of  the  time,  so  that  you  might 
think  his  disposition  a  good  sort.  But  when  it  blazes — 
look  out !  That's  all.  It  was  on  the  blaze  this  time ;  and 
when  you  remember  that  Philip  himself  hasn't  the  most 
— well,  not  the  most  angelic — well,  you  can  believe  it  was 
a  rumpus.  Philip  refused  the  money,  of  course,  and 
obliged  his  father  to  insult  him  to  get  him  to  take  it. 
Then  they  parted  forever ;  and  an  hour  afterwards,  when 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  169 

Philip  was  just  starting  up-stairs  for  the  reconciliation 
that  follows  such  fool  rows,  he  stood  aside  to  let  his  father 
pass,  with  a  lady  on  his  arm.  Deed  didn't  look  at  him. 
The  porters  put  some  luggage  on  a  carriage  in  waiting, 
the  hotel  clerk  threw  an  old  shoe  after  them,  and  I  went 
back  and  inquired  at  the  desk,  and  found  out  that  Philip 
had  a  new  mother.  They  had  been  out  to  St.  George's 
between  the  time  when  Philip  came  out  of  the  hotel  hot 
against  his  father  and  came  to  hunt  me,  and  the  time  when 
Phil,  like  the  sensible  fellow  he  is,  went  back  to  make  it 
all  up." 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  they  were  married  in  church,  anyway," 
said  Beatrice,  "  and  the  haste  wouldn't  make  any  difference 
to  Margaret.  She  wouldn't  care  any  more  what  she  was 
married  in  than — than  a  cassowary." 

"  Yes,"  said  Vertner,  wickedly ;  "  that  indifference  of 
the  cassowary  to  an  appropriate  wedding-dress,  and  that 
vile  carelessness  about  orange  blossoms,  is  just  one  of  those 
facts  of  natural  history  that  lend  a  charm  to — " 

But  his  wife  had  finished  her  dinner,  and  she  came 
over  and  shook  him. 

He  grew  serious  when  she  asked  him  for  his  news. 
"  It's  not  my  news,  Trix,"  he  said.  "  You  mustn't  ask 
me."  He  fell  into  one  of  the  moods  of  sober  thoughtful- 
ness  in  which  his  new  schemes  were  usually  imagined,  and 
in  whtfch  Beatrice  was  always  careful  not  to  disturb  him. 
It  was  not  a  scheme  to-day,  she  saw,  however.  His  face 
was  almost  sad,  and  his  musing  was  apparently  often 
balked  by  some  thought  at  recollection  of  which  he  would 
make  a  wry  face,  and  clench  his  fist. 

Vertner's  trouble  was  the  practical  disappearance  of 
Deed — or,  rather,  certain  circumstances  accompanying  his 


170  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

disappearance  known  only  to  Philip  and  himself.  In  the 
midst  of  his  wretchedness  about  this  miserable  business 
(it  tormented  him  more  than  anything  that  had  ever  hap 
pened  to  himself,  not  only  because  if  he  had  raised  the 
money  in  time  it  wouldn't  have  happened,  but  because  he 
really  liked  Deed,  to  whom  he  owed  his  present  position 
in  Colorado)  only  one  thing  consoled  him :  that  they  had 
not  yet  got  hold  of  it  in  the  town,  and  so  could  not  be 
discussing  it.  What  Vertner  feared  was  that  it  would  get 
into  the  papers.  It  had  not  represented  itself  as  a  dis 
appearance  to  the  town,  thus  far.  It  merely  seemed  to 
the  gossip  of  Maverick  that  Deed  was  taking  an  unusually 
long  wedding- journey. 

There  were,  besides,  other  things  still  to  talk  of  con 
nected  with  Deed,  and  especially  other  things  connected 
with  Margaret  and  her  marriage,  from  which  it  is  doubt 
ful  if  the  town  chatter  would  really  have  liked  to  be  called 
while  so  much  remained  unsaid.  Margaret's  action,  as 
being  the  most  sensational  occurrence  in  what  began  to 
be  known  as  "this  Deed  business," — overtopping  even 
Deed's  desertion  of  her  on  their  wedding-day, — needed 
most  of  the  discussion,  and  it  had  held  the  attention  of 
the  ladies  steadily  since  her  sudden  departure  for  Lead- 
ville,  and  the  announcement  of  the  marriage  in  the  Lead- 
ville  papers  of  the  following  day.  In  that  matter  they 
felt  that  they  had  been  trifled  with.  If  Miss  Derweuter 
had  the  high  strain  of  forgiveness  somewhere  about  her 
enabling  her  to  pardon  a  man  who  had  publicly  deserted 
her  on  her  wedding-day,  why,  in  the  name  of  nameless 
things,  hadn't  she  found  it  out  earlier  ?  Was  it  for  this 
that  she  had  flaunted  her  preference  for  Dr.  Ernfield  in 
the  face  of  the  town  ?  And  what,  pray,  did  she  mean  by 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

her  actions  with  that  gentleman  ?  If  she  had  really  cared 
for  Deed  all  along,  her  encouragement  of  Ernfield  was 
simply  shameless.  The  probability  was  that  she  had  set 
herself  to  captivate  Ernfield  in  the  hope  of  breaking  her 
fall ;  and  that  when  she  found  Ernfield  obdurate  she  had 
turned  to  her  first  lover. 

At  all  events,  when  the  ladies  had  been  put  to  the 
trouble  of  arriving — after  a  week's  fluttering  among  other 
opinions — at  the  belief  that  the  affair  between  her  and 
Deed  was  to  be  regarded  as  definitively  "  off,"  the  neces 
sity  of  revising  this  belief  was  irksome.  The  sense  of 
the  hardship  of  the  situation  of  public  opinion  was  liber 
ally  voiced  wherever  women  met,  and  occasionally  where 
men  met.  The  ladies  usually  began  with  the  admission 
that,  so  far  as  Margaret's  "  carrying-on  "  with  Dr.  Ernfield 
went, — it  was  by  this  phrase  that  they  referred  to  the  re 
lation  which  Margaret  had  imagined  so  innocent ;  it  was 
merciful  that  she  was  not  in  Maverick  at  this  time  to  hear 
what  was  said  of  it, — she  could  not  be  blamed.  What  the 
ladies  objected  to  was  her  playing  fast  and  loose,  and  off 
and  on,  as,  they  said.  "  She  didn't  seem  to  know  which 
she  wanted,  so  far  as  I  can  see,"  said  Mrs.  McDermott, 
whose  husband  dealt  in  hats  on  Mesa  street. 

"  She  got  to  know  at  the  last,"  suggested  one  of  the 
ladies,  grimly,  as  Dr.  Ernfield,  on  horseback,  passed  the 
church  in  which  the  ladies  were  gathered. 

"  Yes,"  laughed  Mrs.  McDermott ;  "  all  of  a  sudden, 
as  you  might  say.  No  doubt  Dr.  Ernfield  gave  her 
cause." 

"  Well,"  exclaimed  Mrs.  B.  Frank  Butler,  "  I'm  sure 
you  can't  say  the  poor  thing  was  to  blame  for  turning 
'most  any  way  for  refuge  just  at  first,  when  Mr.  Deed 


172  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

deserted  her  on  her  wedding-day — going  off  as  casual  as 
you  please.  And  I'm  not  so  sure,  either,  that  I  blame  her 
for  turning  the  other  way  for  refuge,  just  at  the  last. 
There  wasn't  really  anything  left  for  her  but  that,  if  she 
wanted  to  marry  at  all ;  and  as  to  her  flirting  with  Dr. 
Ernfield, — if  you  call  it  that, — I  don't  know  what  I  would 
call  it  m'self — who  can  say  anything  against  a  woman 
that  ain't  past  marriageable  age,  for  allowing  the  atten 
tions  of  a  pleasant  and  agreeable  young  man  that  any  one 
can  see  is  dead  in  love  with  her  ?  " 

She  lifted  her  coarsely  pretty  little  head  out  of  the 
collar  of  her  sealskin  sack  at  this,  bridling ;  and  it  was 
evident  that  Mrs.  Butler  would  not  have  been  guilty  of  a 
wasteful  discretion  in  such  a  case. 


XI. 

"  SEE  here,"  said  Vertner  to  Philip,  when  he  met  him 
in  Mesa  street  in  the  afternoon,  after  his  talk  with  Bea 
trice  (Philip  had  come  down  with  him  from  Leadville  on 
the  day  that  the  evidence  of  Deed's  marriage  had  been 
offered  them),  "  I've  been  thinking  this  thing  out." 

"  You  haven't  thought  it  out  in  any  shape  that's  going 
to  wipe  out  my  asininity,  Vertner,"  returned  Philip. 
"  I'm  at  the  bottom  of  this  thing,  I  tell  you.  You  can't 
get  me  out  from  under  it.  I  maddened  my  father,  and  if 
I  had  had  a  grain  of  sense — or  had  had  the  sense  to  use 
the  sixteenth  part  of  a  grain  that  I  sometimes  have  when 
there's  nothing  to  use  it  on — I  should  have  seen  that  I 
must  madden  him.  Taking  Jasper's  part  at  that !  Well, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

the  thing  wasn't  square.  I  suppose  I  had  to  protest. 
But  think  of  it's  being  Jasper !  As  if  I  didn't  owe  him 
enough ! " 

"  Now  you're  shouting,"  assented  Vertner,  cordially. 
"  "With  a  fellow  like  Jasper  in  sight,  it's  rank  extravagance 
to  waste  your  curses  on  yourself.  And  I  wouldn't  go 
messing  with  this  question  of  responsibility,  either.  / 
don't  believe  we  were  meant  to  settle  that,"  he  asserted, 
with  his  emphatic  nod.  Vertner  had  a  turn  for  philoso 
phy  in  his  odd  hours,  and  a  sense  of  his  responsibility  to 
religion,  to  which,  when  his  wife  asked  him,  he  gave 
proper  financial  expression.  He  secretly  regarded  the 
clergy  as  a  kind  of  lame  ducks  whom  it  was  the  duty 
of  men  blessed  with  the  capacity  for  turning  a  penny  to 
help  along.  It  was  only  vaguely  conceivable,  under  his 
theory,  that  they  would  be  in  the  business  if  they  had 
known  how  to  rustle  for  themselves.  "  The  moment  you 
get  to  portioning  out  blame,  and  saying  where  this 
wouldn't  have  happened  if  so  and  so,  and  how  that  would 
have  been  all  right  if  What's-his-name,"  he  went  on, "  you 
wind  yourself  into  one  of  those  snarls  where  the  more 
you  wind  the  more  you  snarl.  The  simplest  way  is  the 
woman's  way :  scrape  all  the  mud  in  the  affair  into  one 
ball,  and  fling  it  at  the  person  concerned  in  the  business 
that  you  like  least.  And  the  worst  possible  way  is  to  be  a 
pig  about  the  sackcloth,  and  snatch  it  all  for  your  own  wear. 
Better  turn  over  most  of  the  sackcloth  in  this  little  matter 
to  Jasper,  I  guess.  He  deserves  it,  and  it  won't  trouble 
him.  He'll  keep  it  on  the  shelf  in  the  original  package. 
There's  something  about  that  brother  of  yours,  you  know, 
Deed,  that  simply  takes  your  admiration  by  the  collar. 
You  can't  resist  his  talent ;  and  it  would  be  a  shame  to  try." 


174  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  try,"  said  Philip,  with  a  lack-lustre  face. 

He  drew  Vertner  into  a  doorway  out  of  the  confusion 
of  the  street,  crowded  at  this  hour  with  the  ranchmen  and 
miners  who  had  come  into  town  for  the  day  for  supplies, 
for  their  mail,  or  for  mining  or  cattle  dickers,  or  for  mere 
liquid  sociability,  and  had  not  yet  set  out  on  their  return. 
Their  freighted  burros  and  saddled  ponies  pawed  the 
roadway  in  a  long  range  on  each  side  the  street.  Some 
times  one  of  the  ponies  would  lift  a  hoof  to  the  board 
sidewalk,  which  ran  at  the  level  of  his  knees  above  the 
road,  and  hammer  about  on  the  boards  until  a  man  would 
come  from  a  neighbouring  saloon  and  order  him  to  "  Whoa 
there,  you  —  ! " 

"  Well,  that's  right,"  said  Vertner,  heartily,  in  response 
to  Philip's  negative,  as  they  sheltered  themselves  in  the 
doorway.  "  If  you  are  a  miserable  man,  and  your  father 
an  utterly  wretched  one ;  if  he  has  seen  Jasper  play  him 
the  lowest  trick  ingratitude  could  invent ;  if  he  has  seen 
you  apparently  do  the  same,  and  has  come  within  that 
of  losing  a  wife,  and  now  has  had  to  make  his  wedding- 
journey  a  flight  from  justice — " 

"  Oh,  shut  up,  Vertner ! " 

"  — An  opportunity  for  parley  with  the  law,  then.  I 
don't  care  what  you  call  it  (it's  what  he  thinks  it  that 
makes  the  difference,  isn't  it?) — if,  I  say,  one  of  the  first 
families  in  Lone  Creek  County  has  come  to  this  in  a  week, 
it's  a  glorious  satisfaction  to  know  that  the  hand  that  pulled 
the  strings  belongs  to  a  Jim-dandy  of  a  talent.  There's 
something  nothing  less  than  bang-up  about —  Oh,  I  say, 
Phil ! "  he  exclaimed  remorsefully,  as  his  companion 
turned  away.  He  clapped  his  hand  upon  his  shoulder. 
"  I  don't  mean  that  guff.  I  thought —  He  caught  his 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  175 

eye  with  a  look  like  pleading  in  his  own.  "  I  thought 
the  other  view  might  comfort  you  a  bit.  The  tragic  we 
have  always  with  us — expressive  of  the  feelings,  but  wear 
ing,  you  know." 

He  blundered  on,  until  Philip  stopped  him  with : 
"  Oh,  I  know,  Vertner.  Don't  think  I  don't  understand 
that  you've  been  my  best  friend  in  all  this,  and  are  stick 
ing  by  me  like  the  brick  you  are.  Whatever  rot  I  may 
talk,  don't  forget  that.  And  when  we  find  my  father — " 

"  "Which  will  be  the  day  after  to-morrow,"  interrupted 
Vertner,  cheerfully. 

"  What  ?    Have  you  heard  ?  " 

Vertner  rolled  his  lips  over  the  cigar  in  his  mouth. 
"  Well,  there  is  a  sort  of  clue.  But  I  suppose  I  have  to 
own  that  I'm  cribbing  the  date  from  the  general  stock  of 
hopefulness.  We'll  find  him,  though,  wherever  he  is 
gone." 

"Find  him?  Well,  if  I  thought  we  shouldn't!—" 
Philip  set  his  teeth  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  him,  which 
Vertner  had  learned  to  respect.  When  it  had  been  a 
question  in  Chile  of  throwing  a  bridge  across  a  mountain 
gorge,  and  there  had  been  a  call  for  a  volunteer  to  take 
the  first  line  across,  he  remembered  that  Philip  had  said 
quietly,  "  I'll  do  it,"  with  that  tightening  of  the  muscles 
of  the  jaw. 

"  I  suppose  he  is  suffering,"  said  Vertner,  meditatively. 
"  And  it's  so  utterly  useless." 

"  Suffering !  A  man  who  never  stained  his  name  with 
so  much  as  a  shadow  of  wrong,  a  man  whom  all  the  State 
trusts !  Think  what  he  will  be  supposing  that  he  has 
done !  When  I  think  of  that,  and  think  that  I  am  re 
sponsible  for  the  thing ! — " 
12 


176  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  confound  your  responsibility ! "  exclaimed  Vert- 
ner.  "  Didn't  I  say  I'd  get  that  money  for  you?  Didn't 
I  lead  you  to  rely  on  me  for  it  ?  " 

"Stuff!" 

"And  did  I  get  it ?» 

"  Yes." 

"  Did  I  get  it  in  time  to  do  any  good  ?  " 

"No;  but—" 

"  Well,  then!  "  said  Vertner,  conclusively. 

This  money,  which  had  come  too  late,  was  one  of  the 
collateral  misfortunes  for  which  Philip  blamed  himself 
most  severely  in  the  trouble  with  his  father.  He  knew 
that  Vertner,  in  the  failure  of  all  other  chances,  had  hu 
miliated  himself  before  a  man  who  he  had  been  sure  from 
the  beginning  would  lend  him  the  amount  if  he  would 
consent  to  ask  him ;  and  so  had  obtained  it  at  a  price  he 
would  not  have  paid  willingly  for  any  personal  good. 
The  act,  useless  as  it  proved  in  the  event,  bound  him  to 
Vertner,  Philip  felt,  by  a  peculiar  tie.  He  had  always 
known  him  for  a  good  fellow ;  he  had  not  supposed  him 
quite  so  good  a  fellow  as  all  that.  He  himself  knew  what 
it  was  to  borrow  money  where  it  was  lent  grudgingly. 
Some  people  were  great  duffers  about  money,  he  thought. 

Of  course  neither  Philip  nor  Vertner  was  in  a  position 
to  know  of  the  intention  with  which  Deed  had  pledged 
the  stock  at  the  bank  in  Leadville ;  but  they  had  been 
rightly  sure  (at  first)  that  he  must  have  gone  away  with, 
the  expectation  of  finding  money  elsewhere,  and  of  re 
turning  to  redeem  the  securities  before  a  question  could 
arise.  They  had  guessed  so  much  as  this;  but  as  the 
weeks  passed,  and  he  did  not  return,  they  were  forced  to 
believe  that  other  resources  (if  he  had  really  gone  to  seek 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

them)  had  failed  him,  and  that,  recognizing  that  he 
could  not  come  back,  he  had  at  least  not  taken  pains  to 
make  his  whereabouts  known. 

"  I  shouldn't  care  that  we  couldn't  come  at  him,"  said 
Philip,  "  if  we  could  only  let  him  know." 

"  Yes ;  after  the  pains  you  took  to  explain  to  that  re 
ceiving  teller  that  your  father  had  asked  you  to  step 
around  and  redeem  that  stock  for  him,  and  the  pretty  way 
you  manoeuvred  the  return  of  the  actual  stock  itself  to 
Deed's  tin  box  in  the  bank,  where  the  cotrustee  can  find 
it  any  day  he  has  an  unnatural  longing  for  the  sight,  and 
after  the  way  you  deposited  the  other  $25,000  to  your 
father's  private  account,  it's  a  pity  to  have  him  glooming 
around  in  some  Canadian  watering-place,  taking  himself 
for  an  absconding  trustee." 

"  See  here,  Vertner — "  began  Philip,  hotly. 

"  Oh,  well,"  cried  Vertner,  "  that  isn't  the  only  pity. 
What  gives  me  a  pain  is  to  have  to  think  that  we  went 
and  wasted  a  good  joke  on  that  bank  teller." 

"  What  joke  ?  "  asked  Philip,  impatiently. 

"  The  joke  of  paying  back  into  his  old  bank  the  same 
money  your  father  had  just  borrowed  from  it."  He 
quizzed  Philip's  serious  face  with  his  audacious  smile. 


XII. 

IT  had  been  Vertner's  thought — mixed,  like  many  of 
his  thoughts,  of  kindly  intention  and  an  eye  to  business — 
to  ask  Philip  and  Cutter  to  take  charge  of  the  "  Snow 
Find."  As  Vertner  said,  it  would  "  bear  .a  little  more  find 
ing,  and  they  were  the  men  to  do  it."  Beatrice  had  ex- 


178  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

pressed  herself  freely  about  the  double  meaning  which 
this  last  clause  wore  in  her  husband's  inind,  without  shak 
ing  him  from  his  purpose.  He  said  it  was  really  one  of 
the  best  mines  in  the  State ;  that  it  would  be  another 
"  Iron  Silver "  if  you  gave  it  time — and  money.  The 
money  he  hoped  Cutter  would  get  from  his  father  after  a 
while.  Cutter's  father  was  not  always  rich,  he  knew ;  but 
he  often  was.  It  was  the  intermittent  stockbroker  way. 
And  Cutter,  as  he  worked  the  mine  for  himself,  would 
soon  have  the  best  of  all  possible  evidence  of  its  magnifi 
cent  promise.  Vertner  had  visions  of  fetching  the  father 
out  in  a  special  car  to  see  the  " Snow  Find"  for  himself, 
if  it  came  to  that.  The  thing  was  a  bonanza.  Vertner 
even  began,  in  the  rosy  dreams  which  he  allowed  to  curl 
up  out  of  the  accomplished  fact  of  the  installation  of  the 
two  young  men  in  charge  of  the  mine,  to  see  the  making 
of  a  man  of  business  in  Cutter.  Even  Cutter  laughed  at 
this,  and  Philip  roared ;  but  Vertner  said  ha  knew  what 
he  was  about,  which  was  strictly  true ;  and  he  proved 
himself  in  earnest  about  working  the  mine  by  advancing 
Philip  a  month's  salary  when  he  asked  for  it.  The  cred 
itors  at  Pinon,  whom  Philip  had  been  unable  to  silence,  as 
he  had  hoped,  with  his  father's  aid,  were  growing  impu 
dent  about  the  debts  they  had  urged  him  to  contract  with 
servility;  and  money  was  a  necessity.  He  sent  all  that  he 
could  spare  out  of  the  salary  to  his  creditors,  after  lending 
Sandy  Dikes  $5,  losing  $25  on  a  horse-race  at  Pueblo  for 
which  Cutter  had  given  him  a  tip,  and  paying  his  share 
in  a  little  monthly  pension  which  he  had  got  half  a  dozen 
others  at  Piflon  to  join  him  in  arranging  for  Doulton. 
(Doulton's  claim  had  caved  in  on  him,  and  there  was  to 
be  an  amputation ;  they  were  paying  the  pension  until 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  179 

Mrs.  Doulton  could  get  along  on  the  profits  of  the  saloon 
she  had  opened  since  the  accident.)  There  was  also  a 
book  for  which  he  had  heard  Miss  Maurice  express  a  wish ; 
and  when  the  bill  for  it  came  from  Denver,  it  was  higher 
than  he  had  expected.  He  told  Vertner  after  the  first 
week  that  he  would  have  to  raise  his  salary ;  and  Vertner, 
who  was  generous  and  understood,  and  who  was  shrewd 
and  remembered  Cutter,  yielded  readily  enough. 

He  offered  to  raise  Cutter's  salary  also,  but  Cutter  said 
he  should  want  to  get  out  of  the  country  just  as  badly  if 
he  had  $25  more  a  month  as  he  should  without  it;  he 
added  that  he  wasn't  worth  what  he  was  getting,  which 
he  did  not  believe.  He  thought  himself  a  good  sort  of 
mining  engineer  now ;  and  if  his  present  wisdom  on  the 
subject  of  mining  were  matched  against  the  ignorance  he 
had  brought  to  Colorado  in  a  Pullman,  there  was  some 
thing  in  this  estimate  of  himself. 

The  "  Snow  Find  "  was  the  mine  which  Deed  had  left 
on  Vertner's  hands,  full  of  water ;  and  until  he  could  find 
the  money  to  purchase  machinery  to  pump  the  water  out, 
he  had  determined  to  bend  his  energies — or  rather  to  let 
Philip  and  Cutter  bend  their  energies — to  working  a  new 
lead,  away  from  the  water.  The  new  lead  was  actually  a 
productive  one  when  Philip  and  Cutter  began  upon  it ; 
and  they  were  now  taking  out  ore  which  paid  fairly. 

When  Beatrice  questioned  his  motives  now,  Vertner 
unscrupulously  silenced  her  with  the  magnanimous  half 
of  them.  She  could  not  deny,  when  it  was  put  to  her 
with  Vertner's  cogency  of  statement,  that  Philip  had  been 
miserable,  restless,  and  tormented  ;  running  off  on  every 
fresh  clue  to  the  end  of  the  State  (at  ten  cents  a  mile — a 
subject  for  legislation,  if  there  was  one,  Vertner  said), 


180  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

and  coming  back  weary,  disheartened,  and  discouraged. 
She  admitted  that  an  occupation  which  would  give  him 
an  interest,  and  prevent  him  from  brooding  upon  this 
business  of  his  father's  disappearance,  was  a  praiseworthy 
idea ;  and  she  praised  Vertner  for  it,  when  she  was  not 
condemning  him  for  including  Cutter  in  the  matter. 

"  And  do  you  suppose  Philip  would  have  gone  up  there 
into  the  hills  without  him?"  Vertner  asked  securely. 
"  A  cabin  in  the  hills,  strictly  by  yourself,  would  cure  any 
one  of  the  blues.  You  ought  to  prescribe  for  all  the  mis 
ery,  Trix.  Confining  yourself  to  Philip  is  a  limitation  of 
talent." 

"  I  suppose  he  does  feel  that  he  is  doing  the  best  thing 
he  could  do,  until  his  father  is  found,  in  working  at  this 
mine  for  him,"  she  admitted  irrelevantly,  in  the  need  of 
admitting  something.  "And  if  it  should  happen  that 
it  turns  out  as  rich  as  you  expect,  Ned,  why,  what  a 
splendid  thing  it  will  be  for  him  to  be  able  to  turn  it  over 
to  his  father  on  his  return,  and  say — " 

"  I  don't  think  he'll  have  to  say  much.  Deed  will  be 
glad  enough  of  anything  he  can  raise  in  the  shape  of 
money,  by  the  time  he  gets  back,  unless  I'm  a  particularly 
bad  guesser." 

"  Yes  ;  but  he  wouldn't  take  it  from  Philip — not  after 
what  has  passed  between  them  ;  not  after  his  casting  him 
off  like  that,  and  vowing  that  he  would  never  see  him 
again.  You  said  that  yourself,  Ned." 

"  Yes,"  assented  Vertner,  yawning — it  was  the  end  of 
the  evening,  and  he  had  finished  his  Denver  newspaper, 
and  was  stretched  cozily  in  his  deep  chair  before  the  fire, 
— "  I  said  that  he  said  it.  But  Deed's  vows  aren't  always 
'  good  until  used,'  you  know.  The  very  passion  he  ex- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  181 

pends  in  making  them  seems  to  have  a  tendency  to  wear 
them  out  early." 

"  I  don't  think  this  one  will  wear  out.  What  he 
thought  Philip  had  done  was  too  bad.  It  had  the  touch 
of  ingratitude  about  it  that  no  one  can  forgive  in  any 
wrong.  I  know  I  couldn't.  And  I  think  Philip  is  doing 
just  the  right  thing.  It  will  show  his  father — " 

"  That  he  underrated  that  mine  ? "  quizzed  Vertner, 
with  a  laugh,  as  he  rose  lazily  in  preparation  for  bed.  "  It 
will,  it  will,  my  dear !  That  is,  it  will  if  Cutter  senior  is 
the  man  I  take  him  for." 

"Ned!" 

Vertner  smiled  the  smile  of  satisfied  sophistication  at 
her  through  his  half-closed  eyes,  as  he  stretched  his  arms 
in  a  final  yawn.  "  Come,"  he  said,  "  are  you  ever  going 
to  bed  ?  " 

PHILIP  was  glad  of  the  work  Vertner  offered  him  at 
the  "  Snow  Find  "  because  he  needed  money, — he  always 
needed  money,  and  the  search  for  his  father  was  an  added 
channel  of  expenditure  now,  and  a  further  hindrance  to 
the  payment  of  his  debts  at  Pifion, — but  he  liked, 
besides,  to  feel  that  his  work  was  doing  something  more 
for  him  than  earning  the  salary  Vertner  was  giving  him. 
It  was  pleasant  to  feel  that  each  bucketful  of  ore  that 
he  saw  lifted  out  of  the  "  Snow  Find "  was  of  direct 
advantage  to  his  father.  Until  he  could  find  him,  the 
next  best  thing  was  to  be  doing  something  for  him. 
Meanwhile  he  spent  a  large  part  of  his  salary  in  following 
up  clues  of  Deed.  They  all  turned  out  alike;  after  an 
absence  of  a  day  or  two  he  would  return  with  downcast 
face,  and  resume  work  at  the  mine  silently ;  and  Cutter 


182  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

could  not  find  heart  to  question  him.  Even  Vertner's 
light  spirit  would  sometimes  droop  before  their  repeated 
failures;  though  he  always  waked  the  following  morning 
with  a  fresh  idea,  which  Philip  followed  out  or  pooh- 
poohed,  as  it  happened,  but  which  no  longer  excited  any 
buoyancy  in  him.  It  was  maddening  to  think  that  his 
father  was  making  himself  unhappy  somewhere  for  the 
absurdly  simple  reason  that  they  did  not  know  his  ad 
dress. 

The  habit  of  seeing  a  great  deal  of  Dorothy,  and  think 
ing  much  of  her  when  he  was  not  with  her,  went  along 
curiously  with  his  unhappiness  about  his  father.  He 
could  not  talk  to  her  of  his  father's  disappearance,  of 
course,  but  to  see  her  was  to  forget  his  trouble,  and  he 
and  Cutter  both  found  time  from  their  duties  at  the 
"  Snow  Find,"  though  they  could  not  go  together,  to  ride 
with  her.  It  sometimes  happened  that  Philip  and 
Dorothy  rode  alone ;  but  it  usually  fell  out  that  Dick 
Messiter  and  Beatrice  were  of  the  party.  Beatrice  was 
very  fond  of  riding,  and  Vertner  had  been  buying  her  a 
horse  lately  with  the  profits  of  a  little  "  flier"  in  a  Lead- 
ville  mining  stock. 

Dorothy  and  Beatrice  became  fast  friends  in  the  in 
timacy  of  these  rides ;  and  Philip,  though  he  imagined, 
alternately,  furtherances  and  failures  in  Dorothy's  kind 
ness  for  him  day  by  day,  was  really  in  the  unvarying  enjoy 
ment  of  the  type  of  good  will  a  woman  sometimes  gives 
to  a  man  whom  she  trusts.  All  their  relation  took  its 
colour  from  those  days  in  the  cave,  during  which  they  had 
learned  to  know  each  other ;  and  this  should  have  satisfied 
Philip  for  the  moment.  Perhaps  it  might  have  ;  but  he 
was  obliged  to  remember  that  Messiter  had  shared  those 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  183 

days  as  well,  and  that,  with  him,  they  had  succeeded  many 
earlier  days  the  quality  of  which  it  was  easy  to  imagine, 
It  seemed  impossible  that  there  had  been  a  time,  before 
the  snow  had  made  them  acquainted,  when  he  had  not 
known  Dorothy,  whose  existence  now  was  of  the  fibre  of 
his  own  life.  But  such  a  time  had  been,  and  Messiter 
had  plainly  been  master  of  its  opportunities.  He  saw 
him  too  clearly  for  the  good  fellqw  he  was  to  believe  any 
thing  else ;  indeed  he  liked  him  too  well  to  believe  any 
thing  else. 

Messiter,  who  still  remained,  simulating  an  echo  of 
his  early  usefulness  in  settling  the  Maurices'  house  by 
inventing  things  to  do  for  Dorothy,  would  have  smiled 
sadly  at  this  account  of  his  favour  with  her.  He  would 
have  said  that  for  those  who  liked  the  unafraid,  untrou 
bled  liking  she  showed  him,  it  would  probably  be  the  sort 
of  thing  they  liked.  Some  persons  might  enjoy  the  privi 
lege  of  gazing  into  those  gay,  candid,  tender,  thoughtful 
eyes, — the  eyes  which  were  all  these  by  turns  to  him,  but, 
in  his  presence,  never  shy,  nor  downcast,  nor  in  any  kind 
of  happy  difficulties.  But,  for  his  part,  he  must  have 
professed  that  the  absence  of  all  hesitations,  all  embarrass 
ments,  had  its  gloomy  side.  It  was  the  kind  of  relation, 
he  knew,  which  young  men  and  young  women  were  always 
pretending  to  themselves  and  to  each  other  was  their  ideal 
of  all  that  was  blessed  and  comfortable.  Had  he  not 
gammoned  young  girls  with  just  such  talk  on  the  rocks 
at  Mount  Desert,  at  nineteen  ?  But  he  found  nothing  in 
the  situation,  as  it  presented  itself,  either  blessed  or  com 
fortable,  though  he  stayed  on. 

In  spite  of  these  lover's  doubts,  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  this  was  not  a  happy  time  for  all  of  them. 


184  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

It  was  clouded  for  Philip  by  the  continued  fruitlessness 
of  all  efforts  to  find  his  father,  as  well  as  by  the  fluctua 
tions  of  Dorothy's  feeling  towards  him,  which  he  was 
partly  conscious  of  spinning  out  of  his  fancy,  but  con 
stantly  ready  to  credit  afresh.  Yet  he  was  happy  enough 
to  fear  a  change — to  look  forward  to  Jasper's  return  with 
a  fierce  repression  of  his  imagination.  How  would  he  and 
Dorothy  meet  ?  What  was  their  present  relation  ?  Where 
would  they  take  up  the  thread?  Was  there  a  tolerable 
relation  towards  Dorothy  for  him  if  Jasper  still  existed 
for  her?  These  were  the  questions  which  he  refused  to 
ask  himself.  They  were  hints  at  the  threshold  of  a  whole 
torturing  region  of  speculation,  which  to  enter  was  to 
invite  useless  misery  and  the  need  for  an  immediate  de 
cision.  Philip  hated  unpleasant  thoughts,  and  detested 
immediate  decisions ;  if  the  banks  a  mile  ahead  concealed 
the  enemy,  why,  there  was  still  the  mile.  It  might  never 
be  completed,  for  one  thing.  If  it  were,  one  would  find 
something  to  do  when  the  time  came.  It  was  partly  a 
reasonable  confidence  in  himself,  but  chiefly  a  constitu 
tional  unwillingness  to  face  disagreeable  facts,  which 
caused  him  meanwhile  to  lounge  at  the  stern  of  the 
boat,  finding  the  river  water  smooth  and  lulling  under 
his  hand. 

Messiter's  sunny  temper  not  being  for  'clouds  of  any 
kind,  he  found  what  happiness  he  could  in  the  immediate 
and  agreeable  fact  that  he  was  permitted  to  be  constantly 
by  Dorothy's  side;  while  Beatrice,  having  settled  Mar 
garet's  trouble  to  her  satisfaction,  had  crossed  her  off  her 
list,  so  to  say,  and,  for  the  moment,  concerned  herself 
only  intermittently  about  her  (of  course  she  knew  nothing 
of  her  husband's  concern),  awaiting  calmly  her  return  to 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  185 

Maverick,  flushed  with  her  bridal  happiness,  and  filled 
with  new  ideas  about  things.  She  fancied  her  greatly 
changed ;  it  would  only  show  how  marriage  was  the  one 
thing  for  all  women — even  for  those  who  did  not  seem  at 
all  to  have  been  intended  for  its  blessings.  She  fancied 
Margaret's  severity,  her  primness,  her  "niceness"  about 
certain  matters,  as  smoothed  and  softened  into  the  real 
niceness  against  which  not  even  Ned  could  say  anything. 

Dorothy  had  begun  to  plan  for  the  future  of  her  father 
and  herself  in  Maverick.  The  people  of  the  church  had 
been  charmed  by  his  first  sermon,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
it  was  a  capital  sermon.  Their  liking  for  it  suggested  to 
a  number  of  minds  at  once  that  Maurice  should  be  called 
to  the  vacant  pulpit  of  St.  John's  in  the  "Wilderness.  As 
Beatrice  said,  it  was  a  long  time  since  they  had  had  a 
regular  service,  but  the  lapse  had  not  been  due  to  the 
unwillingness  of  the  congregation  to  support  a  clergyman. 
It  was  rather  that  there  were  varying  ideals  in  the  con 
gregation.  But  Maurice  fitted,  in  a  degree,  into  all  these 
expectations  and  wishes.  He  was  a  widower,  he  was  not 
young,  his  graceful,  good-humoured,  flattering  manner 
commended  him  to  every  one,  and  especially  to  those 
who  sought  a  successful  parish  visitor.  He  was  a  High 
Churchman,  holding  with  dignity  to  his  ritual,  but  careful 
to  avoid  grounds  of  offence,  and  he  preached  undeniably 
good  sermons.  He  was,  besides,  a  trained  and  enthusiastic 
musician :  on  his  first  trial- Sunday  the  lady  who  played 
the  organ  fell  ill  at  the  last  moment,  and  until  a  substi 
tute  discovered  herself,  after  the  second  lesson,  he  himself 
accompanied  the  choir  he  had  rehearsed  during  the  week. 

It  had  ended,  after  some  negotiation,  in  his  being 
summoned.  Maurice  had  told  them  frankly  that  he 


186  BENEFITS  FOKGOT. 

could  not  refer  them  to  his  last  parish,  giving  them  his 
own  version  of  the  occurrence  which  had  caused  him  to 
leave  Laughing  Valley  City;  but  when  the  vestry  had 
heard  favourably  about  him  from  the  Dakota  parish  to 
which  he  referred  them,  and  had  definitely  offered  him 
the  post,  he  told  them,  with  some  inward  trembling, — for 
his  resources  were  of  the  slightest,  and  if  this  opportunity 
should  fail  him  he  did  not  know  where  he  should  turn, — 
that  if  he  was  to  remain  with  them  they  must  grant  him 
a  higher  salary.  The  vestry  was  reluctant ;  he  firm.  It 
ended  in  their  advancing  the  salary  $100.  It  was  more 
than  they  had  ever  paid  before,  they  said ;  but  perhaps 
they  had  never  had  so  good  a  clergyman.  Maurice  smiled, 
and  did  not  attempt  to  deny  it.  He  did  not  believe  there 
were  many  men  of  his  sort  to  be  had  for  $800  a  year. 

He  was  now  making  ready  to  preach  certain  sermons 
selected  by  Dorothy  from  a  considerable  collection  sent 
over  the  mountains  on  a  burro  by  the  ladies  at  Laughing 
Valley  City,  and  was  occupied  in  going  about  making  the 
acquaintance  of  his  new  flock. 

His  portly  yet  shapely  and  well-carried  figure,  his 
round,  rubicund,  smiling,  only  half-clerical  face,  his  for^\ 
tunate  voice,  his  admirable  manner,  soon  began  to  be  fa 
miliar  in  Maverick.  It  pleased  Dorothy  to  see  how  pop 
ular  her  father  had  already  become.  She  looked  for 
ward  with  pleasure  to  remaining  a  long  time  in  Maverick. 
Perhaps  he  would  set  about  raising  funds  to  build  a  more 
permanent  church.  She  remembered  that  the  parish  in 
which  her  father  had  remained  longest  was  one  in  which 
he  had  built  a  new  church.  But  there  seemed  no  elements 
of  discord  here,  none  of  the  foolish,  tiresome  people  who 
had  made  trouble  in  other  parishes.  Perhaps  they  should 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

remain  forever.  Perhaps — it  was  a  new  country,  a  fairly 
large  town,  there  was  an  opportunity — perhaps  he  might 
one  day  be  bishop  of  the  diocese. 

Dorothy's  plans  were  made  with  a  pencil  and  a  little 
memorandum-pad,  from  which  she  tore  a  number  of  sheets 
without  finding  a  comfortable  relation  between  her  father's 
salary  (after  adding  their  trifling  income  to  it)  and  the 
prices  prevailing  in  Maverick  for  rent,  food,  and  clothing. 
She  avoided  troubling  her  father  about  practical  questions 
when  she  could ;  but  before  they  left  the  hotel,  where  they 
had  been  staying  since  their  arrival,  she  felt  that  she  must 
set  the  result  of  her  calculations  before  him.  When  she 
attacked  him  on  the  subject  at  breakfast  one  morning,  he 
smiled  cheerfully. 

"  Oh,  we  shall  get  along,  I  think.  We  shall  get  along." 
He  rubbed  his  large,  carefully  kept  hands  together,  after 
spreading  his  napkin  over  his  ample  form.  "  Have  you 
included  your  mother's  legacy  in  your  calculations,  Dor 
othy?" 

"  Oh,  yes.  But  with  your  salary  it  only  makes  a  little 
over  a  thousand  dollars.  I'm  afraid  we  ought  not  to  have 
taken  so  expensive  a  house." 

His  smile  revealed  the  even  glitter  of  perfect  teeth  be 
neath  a  mustache  which  had  been  criticised  as  jaunty  for 
a  clergyman.  "  Why,  my  dear,  we  couldn't  live  in  an  un- 
plastered  house,  could  we?" 

His  smile  and  tone  made  it  seem  preposterous,  but 
Dorothy  said  doubtfully :  "  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  when 
we  found  that  we  could  get  nothing  plastered  under 
8400,  we  ought  to  have  felt  that  we  must  take  one  of  the 
others." 

"  Oh,  no.     Why,  even  at  Laughing  Valley  we  had  a 


188  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

plastered  house.  Surely  it  doesn't  seem  an  unreasonable 
ambition — a  plastered  house.  And  even  if  it  were,  depend 
upon  it,  the  clergy  get  what  they  insist  on.  A  man's 
needs  are  measured  by  the  account  he  gives  of  them  ;  and 
in  turn  he  is  measured  by  his  needs.  If  a  clergyman 
shows  himself  content  with  a  hovel,  he  not  only  won't  get 
a  decent  dwelling,  but  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  some 
other  need,  he  will  be  thought  as  capable  of  doing  without 
whatever  it  may  be  that  he  wants  as  he  showed  himself  of 
doing  without  the  house.  I  have  always  found  that  I  got 
what  I  wanted  by  taking  the  proper  stand.  I  have  found 
that  people  of  a  certain  class  respect  the  inability  of  a  gen 
tleman  to  do  without  things  which  they  have  never  felt 
the  need  of." 

"  But,  father — "  protested  Dorothy,  and  paused.  She 
had  been  about  to  ask  if  the  price  of  having  all  that  one 
wanted  might  not  be  that  some  one  else  should  have  less 
than  he  wanted  —  less  than  his  own,  perhaps.  She  was 
glad  not  to  have  said  it.  An  observation  which  seems 
true  in  the  largest  bearing  may  be  quite  false  to  the 
little  fact  which  suggests  it,  and  which  one  is  tempted 
to  try  by  it.  Her  father  was  right,  of  course.  He  was 
always  right. 

Philip  and  Cutter,  in  their  cabin  at  the  "  Snow  Find," 
often  discussed  Maurice.  They  agreed  that  it  was  a  pity 
that  Dorothy  should  have  such  a  man  for  a  father,  or  that 
he  should  happen  to  have  such  a  daughter;  but  they 
avoided  the  discussion  of  Dorothy  herself  by  tacit  agree 
ment.  As  Philip  drew  on  his  town-going  boots  for  the 
fifth  time  during  a  single  week,  however,  and  began  to 
rummage  in  his  chest  fora  white  shirt,  Cutter  made  no 
further  effort  to  contain  himself. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  189 

"  You  are  not  going  in  for  a  boiled  shirt ! "  he  ex 
claimed,  as  Philip  exchanged  the  loose  flannel  of  the  West 
for  the  Eastern  affectation.  Cutter — in  pursuit  of  his 
loyalty  to  the  civilization  which  had  produced  him — had 
never  disused  it,  though  the  washerwoman  at  Pinon  had 
forced  him  to  go  to  a  Chinaman  by  returning  the  first 
white  shirts  he  sent  her,  contemptuously,  rough-dried. 
"  Oh,  I  say,  this  is  too  much !  Do  you  know,  I've  had  an 
idea  once  or  twice  lately,  Deed,  that  you  are  rather  hard 
hit.  Tremendously  nice  girl !  "  he  murmured  to  the  cig 
arette  he  was  lighting. 

"Oh,  yes;  she's  nice  enough,  if  that's  all,"  owned 
Philip,  rummaging  in  his  army  chest  for  some  collars, 
which  he  fished  out  at  last,  limp  and  yellow  from  their 
confinement  of  a  year.  "  Do  you  suppose  there  are  any 
memories  in  New  York  long  enough  to  recall  the  time 
when  this  was  the  pre-eminently  pre-eminent  shape  in 
collars  ?  "  he  asked,  holding  up  a  bundle  of  them. 

"  Stocks  may  have  come  in  again,  for  all  I  know," 
answered  Cutter.  "  Ask  somebody  more  in  the  way  of 
that  sort  of  information,  Crusoe,  my  boy,  than  Man  Fri 
day.  But,  I  say,  Deed,  she  is  nice." 

"  I  think  I  remember  agreeing  with  you  in  that  ob 
servation,"  said  Philip.  "  But  I'll  sign  a  treaty  with  you 
to  regard  her  as  nice,  if  that  doesn't  satisfy  you.  I'll  give 
bonds,  I'll  mortgage  myself  as  security  for  her  niceness,  if 
you  like.  Come  !  "  The  eagerness  of  his  manner  was  a 
trifle  out  of  key  with  this  sort  of  easiness  ;  but  Cutter  for 
bore  his  gibes. 

"  I  say,  I'm  awfully  glad  for  you,  old  man."  He  had 
got  himself  on  his  feet,  and  wrung  Philip's  hand. 

"  Are  you  ?    What  a  romantic  dog  you  are,  Cutter  ! 


190  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

It's  uncommonly  good  of  you."  He  turned  to  the  recon 
sideration  of  the  collars.  "  I  wish  I  saw  any  cause  to  be 
glad." 

"  Don't  you  ?  Then  it's  because  you  are  infernally  un- 
gVateful.  I'm  bound  to  say  that  I  do." 

"  Yes,"  said  Philip,  with  a  weary  smile  ;  "  it  is  you,  I 
believe,  who  look  for  big  things  from  the  '  Little  Cipher.' 
You've  got  such  a  lot  of  faith,  Cutter.  It  makes  a  cheer 
ful  companion  of  you.  But  you  are  hideously  unreliable, 
you  know.  You'll  be  wanting  to  convince  me  that  it  is 
the  honourable  obligation  of  a  beggar  to  go  and  propose 
marriage  to  somebody  or  other,  next.  Jasper  has  fur 
nished  me  with  just  the  sort  of  situation  for  you  to  try 
your  abominable  cheerfulness  on.  Turn  it  .on,  Cutter. 
Eub  up  your  lamp,  and  get  to  work.  I'm  ready  for  any 
lie,  if  there's  hope  in  it." 

"  Pshaw  !  There  are  paying  properties  in  the  world 
besides  the  ranch  your  brother  has  swindled  you  out  of 
your  share  in.  You  forget  the  '  Pay  Ore.'  " 

"  Oh,  no,  I  don't — not  when  I'm  in  high  spirits,  and 
don't  need  what  hope  there  is  in  it.  But  a  man  can't  live 
on  a  hope  like  that,  Cutter;  and  if  he  could,  a  woman 
couldn't,  and  no  man  could  ask  her  to.  And  if  he  could 
ask  her,  he  couldn't  ask  her  father  to  let  her."  Cutter 
smiled  at  this  reference  to  Maurice,  who  was  a  kind  of 
joke  between  them ;  and  Philip  smiled  with  him  ruefully. 
The  idea  of  Maurice  allowing  his  daughter  to  marry  any 
one  but  a  rich  man  struck  them  both  as  humorous  ;  yet 
Cutter  had  to  say,  to  console  Philip,  rather  than  because 
he  believed  it: 

"  I  don't  know.  There's  some  good  in  the  old  fraud, 
after  all." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  191 

"  Oh,  don't  go  turning  your  cheerfulness  on  Maurice  ! 
You  haven't  got  the  candle-power." 

"  You  might  let  me  illuminate  a  little,  and  try," 
laughed  Cutter.  "  But  it  is  a  sombre  subject,  that's  a 
fact.  You'll  have  to  elope. " 

"  Shut  up,  Cutter  ! " 

"  Well,  then,  you'll  have  to  wait  for  his  consent.  Put 
it  either  way.  I'm  only  trying  to  please  you  ;  and  a  dash 
of  grey  in  the  groom's  hair  isn't  so  bad,  if  you  come  to 
that." 

"  Oh,  drop  it !  Your  despair  is  worse  than  your  cheer 
fulness." 

"  Well,  it  does  seem  to  fit  the  facts  of  the  case  a  little 
closer." 

"  Oh,  you're  right.  You're  right.  It  does,  and  I 
know  it  when  I'm  not  with  her ;  but  when  I  am —  D — 
it,  man,  I  love  her !  I  can't  lose  her  ! " 

"  Now  you're  talking  sense." 

"  Am  I  ?  It  strikes  me  as  a  good  deal  more  like  the 
other  thing.  No ;  I  always  come  around  to  a  clear  sight 
of  the  situation — Jasper  has  fixed  me  out.  It's  as  if  he 
knew  I  must  meet  and  care  for  the  girl  he  once —  Bah  ! " 
Philip  turned  on  his  heel. 

"  See  here,  have  you  given  up  your  faith  in  the  '  Pay 
Ore'?" 

"  No,"  growled  Philip ;  "  and  I  haven't  given  up  my 
faith  in  the  coming  Brotherhood  of  Man ;  but  I  wouldn't 
ask  a  girl  to  go  to  housekeeping  on  it." 

This  was  no  reason  why  they  should  not  thresh  out  to 
gether  again,  for  the  hundredth  time,  the  actual  grounds 
for  faith  in  the  future  of  the  "  Pay  Ore."  They  said  to 
gether  again,  and  managed  to  say  it  without  smiling,  that 
13 


192  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

the  ore-bearing  vein  was  there  ;  that  they  were  taking  out 
good  mineral  all  around  the  "  Pay  Ore  "  on  the  Hill ;  that 
it  was  a  question  of  finding  out  which  way  the  vein  dipped, 
and  a  question  of  the  capital  and  patience  necessary  to 
reach  it ;  and  they  agreed  that  Ryan  had  the  capital  and 
the  patience.  Philip  ridiculed  Cutter's  faith,  as  he  always 
did  when  they  spoke  of  this  subject  together ;  but  it  was 
a  way  of  playing  his  own  hope,  and  they  both  knew  it. 
Philip  hoped  rather  easily,  and  most  easily  as  a  refuge 
from  despair.  He  liked  to  be  comfortable,  and  despair 
was  uncomfortable.  If  he  sometimes  chose  skepticism  for 
an  outward  seeming,  it  was  by  way  of  hedging:  one's 
hopes  did  not  always  come  off,  and  a  sophisticated  doubt 
looked  better  on  the  record  afterwards. 

"  You'll  live  to  see  Ryan  with  his  pick  in  that  vein, 
yet,"  Cutter  concluded.  He  had  got  to  the  end  of  his 
mining  engineer's  argument,  and  was  indulging  his  gift 
of  amiable  prophecy. 

"Shall  I?"  retorted  Philip.  "It  will  be  a  pretty 
tableau.  But  I  don't  know  why  we  trouble  ourselves 
about  it,  unless  it  is  to  avoid  the  point." 

"  What  is  the  point  ?  "  He  looked  steadily  at  Philip, 
who  smiled  without  amusement.  "  Oh  ! "  he  exclaimed 
with  intelligence.  "  Well,  yes — "  Cutter  smiled.  "  But 
don't  you  think—  ?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  I  don't." 

Cutter  bent  forward.     "  Why,  what's  the  trouble  ?  " 

"Usual  trouble.     Another  fellow." 

"  What  ?    You  think  she  cares  for  that—" 

"  That  gentleman,  as  you  were  about  to  call  him,  Mr. 
Cutter,  is  a  great  sight  too  good  for  any  shoe-string  tying 
of  mine." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  193 

"  Oh,  look  here —  Well,  Messiter  is  a  good  fellow.  I 
admit  it.  But  what  of  it  ?  Abstract  considerations  of 
that  sort  don't  hold  in  a  case  of  this  kind." 

"  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,  Cutter,"  exclaimed  Philip,  as 
he  buttoned  one  of  the  collars  about  his  neck.  "  I  forgot 
that  you  were  an  expert  in  these  things.  Well,  what  does 
hold  ?  Out  with  it !  Let  us  have  the  latest !  Don't  put 
me  off  with  any  of  your  mouldy,  out-of-date  decisions. 
Give  me  the  brand-newest  opinion  there  is — something 
that  can't  be  reversed  before  I  can  get  her  assent  to  it — 
Court  of  Appeals,  preferably." 

Cutter  pulled  at  his  mustache,  thoughtfully,  and  blew 
some  smoke  in  Philip's  direction. 

"  Well,  you  might  hold,  for  one  thing.  I  have  a  no 
tion  she  likes  you." 

"  Thanks,"  returned  Philip,  dryly.  "  I  believe  the 
worst  of  us  have  a  kindness  for  our  coolies,  our  dragomen, 
our  slaves.  Wouldn't  a  woman  like  a  man  who  made  a 
profession,  a  calling,  a  vocation  of  her ;  who  revered  her 
boots ;  whose  idea  of  happiness  was  being  stepped  on  by 
them ;  who  spent  his  nights  in  dreaming  new  ways  to  be 
an  ass  for  her  sake,  and  his  days  in  carrying  out  his 
dreams?  Wouldn't  she  ?  I  should  hope  so." 

"  You  have  been  going  it  a  little  strong  with  her  this 
last  fortnight.  I  suppose  she  has  been  rather  enjoying 
the  spectacle." 

"  See  here,  Cutter,"  said  Philip,  hotly,  "  if  you  think 
Miss  Maurice  capable  of  torturing  a  man  for  her  amuse 
ment  merely,  you  never  were  more  mistaken  in  your  .life. 
She's  not  that  sort.  The  fineness,  the  dignity,  the  genu 
ineness  and  truth  of  that  girl,  Cutter —  Oh,  the  devil !  " 

Cutter  was  laughing. 


194  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

THE  servant  at  the  Maurices'  cottage  said  that  Miss 
Maurice  was  in  the  parlour.  The  house  on  which  Dorothy 
and  her  father  had  finally  fixed  was  the  usual  frame  shell 
of  the  newer  towns  of  the  West.  There  were  better 
houses  in  Maverick — the  Vertners  lived,  by  comparison, 
in  a  mansion — but  there  were  cruder  buildings  too — log 
cabins  chinked  with  mortar,  and  houses  constructed  out 
of  disused  packing-boxes,  and  roofed  with  canvas.  On 
the  ground  floor,  besides  the  kitchen  and  the  dining- 
room,  there  was  only  the  pleasant  little  room  at  the  front 
of  the  house ;  and  it  was  this  that  the  maid-servant  called 
a  "  parlour."  It  was,  in  fact,  Dorothy's  sitting-room  and 
sewing-room,  though  Maurice  spoke  of  it  as  their  draw 
ing-room.  As  Philip  turned  the  knob  on  the  door  of  this 
room,  he  felt  a  hand  upon  it  on  the  other  side,  and,  re 
leasing  his  own  grasp,  the  door  opened.  Jasper  stood 
before  him  in  the  act  of  bidding  farewell  to  Dorothy. 
He  lifted  his  head,  and,  seeing  Philip  in  the  doorway, 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  him  with  his  courtly  smile. 
Philip,  drawing  back  to  let  him  pass,  kept  his  gaze  fixed  on 
his  face,  looking  him  in  the  eye  motionlessly,  with  a  black 
glance  of  scorn.  He  would  not  see  the  hand.  Flushing  to 
his  temples,  Jasper  gave  a  contemptuous  little  laugh,  and 
walked  by  him,  turning  once  more  to  bow  to  Miss  Maurice. 

When  Philip  had  got  himself  through  the  door  and 
into  the  room,  he  went  up  to  Dorothy  in  a  dazed  way, 
and  offered  her  his  hand.  He  thought  he  perceived  a 
kind  of  reluctance,  which  she  conquered  in  the  imper 
ceptible  moment  that  passed  before  she  took  his  hand  in 
the  frank  and  hearty  clasp  that  had  been  from  the  be 
ginning  one  of  the  little  things  he  had  liked  best  in  her. 
Then  she  asked  him  quickly  if  he  had  seen  her  type-writer. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  195 


XIII. 

IN"  his  first  groping,  and  bitter  explanations  of  it  to 
himself,  Philip  saw  how  natural  it  was  that  he  should 
find  Jasper  with  her.  He  had  not  known  of  his  return, 
and  he  must  have  come  this  morning,  as  he  was  certain 
that  he  had  not  been  in  Maverick  the  day  before ;  but 
being  returned,  and  hearing  of  her  presence  in  Maverick, 
what  could  be  more  in  the  course  of  things  than  a  meet 
ing  of  old  lovers,  long  separated,  in  the  first  hours  of 
Jasper's  home-coming  ?  Oh,  it  was  natural  enough ! 

"  A  type-writer ! "  he  said,  in  the  easy  and  flowing 
tones  of  one  who  tries  to  be  easy.  "  I  congratulate  you. 
It's  a  great  thing.  You  will  write  your  father's  sermons 
now,  I  suppose." 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "  Yes,  perhaps,  if  I  can 
learn." 

It  was,  in  fact,  a  longing  desire  with  her  to  write  her 
father's  sermons  for  him  at  his  dictation — he  detested  the 
manual  labour  of  writing.  But  nothing  seemed  quite  so 
possible  and  worth  while  as  it  had  seemed  a  moment  ago. 

"  Do  you  know  anything  about  it  ?  Perhaps  you  can 
show  me,"  she  said,  to  make  conversation.  She  chafed 
under  this  difficult  exchange  :  it  had  never  been  like  this 
between  them  hitherto.  They  had  always  talked  freely 
and  naturally :  it  was  one  of  the  things  which  made  this 
Mr.  Deed  a  pleasant  man  to  get  along  with,  she  had 
thought.  He  was  so  straightforward,  so  simple  and 
direct ;  he  had  no  attitude,  he  never  got  himself  up,  he 
had  not  even  that  man's  pose  in  talking  to  a  woman 
which  she  disliked.  He  talked  to  her,  she  felt  sure,  as  he 


196  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

might  have  talked  to  a  man.  He  understood  things 
without  being  told.  Men  to  whom  one  had  to  explain 
irritated  her.  And  now  he  was  not  going  to  understand ; 
and  he  was  defending  himself  from  the  natural  course  of 
their  usual  talk  with  an  artifice. 

Was  it  in  fact  true,  then,  that  such  a  thing  as  a  frank 
and  cordial  relation  between  young  men  and  young 
women  was  an  impossibility  ?  She  heard  Philip  saying 
that  he  had  once  spent  a  month  or  two  in  studying  the 
type- writer,  as  she  asked  this  question  of  herself.  It  was 
going  to  fall  in  with  one  of  his  young  plans  for  being 
successful  in  some  other  way  than  the  way  his  father 
wished,  and  had  been  dropped  when  the  plan  had  fol 
lowed  the  other  plans.  She  heard  this  distantly  while  she 
passed  in  hasty  review  all  possible  and  impossible  occa 
sions  for  the  scene  at  the  door  and  for  his  constraint. 
Was  the  blame  hers,  in  any  way  ?  she  asked  herself.  Or, 
whosesoever  the  blame,  might  it  be  her  opportunity  to 
reconcile  them?  Dorothy's  goodness  was  always  impul 
sive;  the  people  who  did  not  like  the  consequences  of 
some  of  her  rash  bursts  of  kind-heartedness  said  that  it 
was  absurd.  It  was  true  that  she  was  good  in  haste,  and 
often  repented  at  leisure ;  but  she  liked  better  to  stumble 
and  wound  herself,  as  she  must,  in  her  rush  to  help  some 
one  who  had  fallen,  than  to  suck  wise  maxims  about 
prudence  in  contented  inaction.  She  kept  a  generous 
scorn  for  the  mincing  caution  of  the  proverbs.  All 
proverbs  were  stingy  and  selfish,  she  thought,  and  taught 
one  to  live  for  one's  self  in  the  handsomest  security. 

She  went  to  the  type-writer,  and  began  to  finger  it 
with  the  gingerly  deliberateness  of  the  novice,  while  he 
stood  above  her  looking  on,  and  they  exchanged  question 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  197 

and  answer  without  much  notion  on  either  side  of  what 
they  were  talking  about.  She  was  feeling,  with  a  woman's 
sense  of  social  obligation,  that  she  must  do  something  to 
keep  the  affair  moving ;  while  her  kindly  puzzlement 
about  the  little  drama  at  the  door  went  on  steadily  in  her 
thoughts. 

Philip  was  capable  of  listening  at  any  time  to  the  tak 
ing  modulations  of  her  sweet,  rich  Southern  voice,  with 
out  troubling  his  head  about  what  she  was  saying ;  and  it 
was  in  this  dreamy  way  that  he  was  listening  to  her  now, 
thinking  also,  as  if  it  were  a  novel  thought,  how  utterly 
pretty  she  was.  She  was  dressed  in  a  house-gown  of  black, 
with  the  daintiest  suggestion  of  a  dark-green  velvet  at  the 
throat,  shoulders,  and  sleeves ;  and  the  quietness  of  this 
effect  seemed  to  exalt  the  beauty  of  her  fresh  colouring, 
her  good,  honest,  sincere,  admirable  eyes,  her  shapely  face. 
How  she  stared  at  her  type-writing !  He  wished  she 
would  look  about  at  him.  It  was  two  minutes  since  he 
had  seen  her  eyes ;  the  whimsical  brown,  floating  inter 
mittently  in  their  grey  depths,  would  have  had  time  to 
change  or  go. 

There  suddenly  seemed  nothing  further  to  say,  and, 
leaning  back  from  the  type-writer,  she  patted  her  hand 
upon  her  dress,  and  called,  "  Here,  Jack ! "  A  great  New 
foundland  dog,  which  had  been  lying  on  the  floor  by  the 
side  of  the  type-writer,  leaped  up,  placing  his  forepaws  in 
her  lap,  and  wagging  his  tail.  Jack  had  been  given  up 
by  Messiter  while  they  were  at  Laughing  Valley  City,  and 
it  had  been  one  of  the  pains  of  her  hurried  departure  that 
she  must  leave  him  behind ;  but  Messiter  had  arranged  to 
have  him  brought  over  the  Pass  by  careful  hands,  and  it 
was  a  week  since  he  had  been  restored  to  her.  She  was 


198  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

extremely  fond  of  him.  He  plunged  his  paws  in  a  mo 
ment  into  the  keyboard  of  the  type- writer,  and  Philip 
dragged  him  off. 

The  diversion  seemed  to  restore  them  to  themselves, 
for  Philip  said,  more  in  the  tone  of  their  usual  talk  than 
anything  that  had  been  said  since  he  entered  the  room, 
"  I  didn't  know  you  had  a  type- writer." 

And,  glad  of  the  change,  Dorothy  answered :  "  I 
haven't.  To  really  have  a  type-writer  I  suppose  one 
should  know  how  to  use  it,  if  only  a  very  little  ;  and  be 
sides,  it  doesn't  belong  to  me,  but  to  a  clergyman,  a  friend 
of  my  father,  who  left  it  for  me  to  try.  He  has  gone  East 
on  his  vacation,  and  spent  a  night  with  us  on  his  way 
down  from  Leadville." 

"  You  will  like  it  immensely.  You  will  hate  him  when 
he  comes  to  take  it  back." 

She  shook  her  beautiful  head,  laughing.  "  I  don't 
know.  It  makes  me — wriggle,"  she  said.  "  I  can't  bear 
to  pick  out  the  letters.  I  don't  like  the  noise,  and  it's  all 
so  mechanical,  so  barbarous.  It's  a  great  convenience,  I 
suppose,  and  I  shall  go  on  with  it  on  papa's  account,  if  I 
find  I  can.  But  I  can't  see  how  any  one  could  like  it. 
What  is  there  to  like  ?  " 

"  Everything.     Let  me  show  you." 

"  Oh,  if  you  do  it  like  that ! "  she  exclaimed,  as  he  rat 
tled  off  a  number  of  sentences,  in  the  seat  she  gave  up  to 
him. 

"  You  must  do  it  like  that,"  he  rejoin'ed,  without 
looking  up  from  the  keyboard,  over  which  his  fingers 
twinkled  bewilderingly.  "  You  didn't  think  that  you 
were  to  go  hesitatingly  from  letter  to  letter,  with  a 
little  fearsome  pause  between  each  jump,  like  Eliza  in 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  199 

'Uncle  Tom's  Cabin'  escaping  across  the  floating  ice, 
did  you  ?  " 

He  was  feeling  much  happier  now.  After  all,  it  had 
been  only  a  school-girl  and  -boy  engagement.  He  knew 
that  it  no  longer  existed — that  it  had  not  existed  for  four 
years.  "Was  it  likely  that — pshaw !  Had  not  Jasper  called 
on  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  the  place  ?  He  had  not  for 
gotten.  Did  he  ever  forget  any  purpose  ?  He  brought 
himself  back  to  the  consideration  of  the  type-writer  lesson 
with  an  effort. 

She  was  interested.  "  You  won't  mind  if  I  ask  ques 
tions  ?  "  she  said,  as  she  consented  to  try  again  for  her 
self.  She  let  her  fingers  idle  over  the  letters  without 
pressing  their  white  circles.  "  Why  isn't  the  alphabet  set 
in  order  ?  " 

" '  The  better  to  puzzle  you,  my  dear,' "  quoted  Philip, 
absently,  but  enjoying  the  use  of  the  epithet. 

"  There  is  a  better  reason  than  that,"  returned  Doro 
thy.  She  laughed,  flushing  a  little  at  his  phrase. 

"  Yes,"  he  admitted ;  "  you  will  find  it  a  very  good 
thing,  after  you  have  gone  a  little  farther,  to  have  the 
most-used  letters  nearest  your  hand.  Suppose,  now,  you 
put  in  a  fresh  sheet  of  paper,  and  try  a  sentence  or  two  on 
your  own  account." 

He  inserted  the  paper,  showed  her  the  use  of  the  little 
device  for  separating  words,  taught  her  to  pull  back  the 
running-gear  at  the  top  at  the  warning  of  the  bell,  made 
plain  the  means  of  governing  the  space  between  lines,  and 
then  gave  her  a  little  lecture  on  the  position  of  the  small 
and  capital  letters,  the  punctuation-marks,  and  the  nu 
merals.  She  listened  with  serious  attention,  and,  as  he 
bent  over  to  illustrate  his  meaning,  withdrew  herself  to 


200  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

leave  space  for  the  play  of  his  arms,  while  he  pressed  the 
letters,  or  caught  back  the  sliding-rack. 

In  this  close  and  amiable  proximity  the  constraint  be 
tween  them  of  a  few  moments  back  seemed  already  to  have 
aged  itself  into  an  unhistoried  past.  She  was  wondering 
how  this  could  be  the  man  who  had  given  Jasper  the 
look  at  the  door  which  she  could  not  forget ;  and  he  was 
saying  to  himself  that  in  all  the  world  there  were  not 
eyes  like  those  he  looked  down  into  when  she  would 
glance  up  suddenly  from  time  to  time  to  ask  him  a  ques 
tion,  or  to  give  one  of  her  flashing  turns  to  his  replies, 
with  that  charming  manner  of  reserved  freedom  which 
was  constantly  a  new  grace  in  her. 

She  became  proficient  enough  at  last  to  write  out  co 
herent  sentences  for  herself,  and  together  they  found  the 
things  she  wrote  very  amusing. 

"  Suppose  you  see  if  you  can  read  what  I  write  from 
the  movement  of  my  fingers,  Mr.  Deed,"  she  said.  "  You 
are  not  to  turn  the  cylinder  up  to  look  ;  but  only  to  read, 
if  you  can,  as  I  go  along."  She  began  in  a  kind  of  em 
barrassment,  and  did  not  get  on  as  well  with  the  first 
words  as  she  had  in  her  earlier  experiments.  But  she 
tried  again,  in  a  moment,  and  completed  the  sentence 
with  a  little  air  of  bravado. 

She  kept  her  eyes  on  the  keyboard,  but  as  he  did  not 
speak  she  glanced  up  at  him  hastily. 

"  Oh ! "  exclaimed  Philip,  recalled  to  himself.  "  I  was 
to  read  from  your  fingers.  Well,  shall  we  begin?" 

Dorothy  laughed  nervously.  "  We  have  begun,"  she 
said.  "  Didn't  you  see  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes !  "  assented  he.  "  Or — no  ;  I  was — " 
It  was  impossible  to  say  that  he  had  been  watching  the 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  201 

movement  of  her  fingers,  and  speculating  upon  the  ques 
tion  whether  all  women  had  such  hands,  and  why  he  had 
never  noticed  how  adorably  contrived  for  type-writing 
they  were.  He  had  got  to  the  point  of  remembering  that 
he  had  seen  a  number  of  young  girls  hammering  away  at 
type-writers  in  offices  without  being  moved  by  the  spec 
tacle,  when  her  glance  called  him  back. 

"  "Will  you  write  it  again  ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  will  really 
watch  this  time." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  think  I  could  write  it  again,"  returned 
Dorothy,  quickly. 

"  Why  not  ?  As  a  punishment  for  inattention  ?  I 
suppose  I've  deserved  it,"  he  said. 

"  No ;  I  don't  think  I  ought." 

"  It  was  a  real  sentence,  then.  I  claim  it  as  a  right, 
in  that  case.  You  have  made  a  communication  to  me, 
Miss  Maurice.  You've  no  right  to  withhold  it.  It  has 
passed  out  of  your  hands." 

"  Yes,"  owned  she,  with  amusement,  "  that's  true ;  but 
it  didn't  pass  into  your  eyes.  I  offered  it  to  you,  and 
you  wouldn't  look.  You  were  engaged." 

"  Then  you  are  punishing  me,  and  that's  equally  un 
fair." 

"  No — no,  I'm  not,"  she  denied  doubtfully ;  "  but — " 
with  a  whimsical  smile  that  enchanted  him — "  why,  it 
was  not  discreet,  what  I  wrote."  She  smiled  up  at 
him. 

"  No  ?  "  he  asked,  in  pure  enjoyment. 

"  No."  And  then,  in  a  moment,  "  You  wouldn't  urge 
me  to  be  tw-discreet  ?  " 

"  No,  I  shouldn't  urge  it.  I  should  insist  upon  it.  I 
do.  Come ! "  he  said,  and  she  wondered  why  she  liked 


202  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

his  air  of  domination  better  than  Jasper's,  though  she  did 
not  altogether  dislike  Jasper's. 

"  And  the  demon  said  unto  me,  '  Write  ! ' "  para 
phrased  she. 

"  It  was  an  angel,"  said  Philip. 

"  "Was  it  ?  "  She  bent  her  hands  hesitantly  above  the 
keyboard.  "  But  you  must  promise  to  stay  angel,"  she 
said,  suddenly  arresting  herself.  She  glanced  up  doubt 
fully  at  his  face.  "  No  ;  I  won't  write  it  again.  It  wasn't 
wise ;  it  wasn't — nice." 

"  That  settles  it,  then  :  I  must  see  it." 

"  No,"  repeated  Dorothy ;  "  you  wouldn't  like  it.  It 
was  a  quite  wrong  thing  to  ask."  Her  fingers  hovered 
above  the  keyboard  meditatively.  She  suddenly  began  to 
pick  out  the  letters. 

Philip  followed  her  fingers  closely.  He  read,  letter  by 
letter,  "  Why  wouldrft  you  speak  to  your  brother  at  the 
door  ?  " 

He  rose  abruptly  from  his  stooping  position  above  the 
machine,  colouring  painfully. 

She  looked  up,  at  his  impulsive  movement,  and  rose 
herself.  "  Oh,  what  have  I  done  ? "  she  exclaimed  at 
sight  of  his  face.  After  a  miserable  pause :  "  You  needn't 
tell  me.  It  was  very  wrong  of  me.  I  knew  it.  But  it 
wasn't  I  who  asked,  Mr.  Deed.  I  would  never  have  asked 
— not  myself.  I  thought,"  she  said,  gathering  her  ex 
planations  painfully,  "  or  the  type- writer  thought, — it 
wasn't  I — it  escaped  me, — that  perhaps  I  could  reconcile, 
bring  you  togeth — "  The  words  died  upon  her  lips.  "  It 
was  a  foolish  thought,  I  see ;  and  yet,"  she  added,  with 
recovered  dignity,  "  perhaps  I  had  a  kind  of  right  to  it. 
Your  brother  is  an  old  friend," — Philip  looked  up  at  this, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  203 

— "  and  you — you  have  been  very  good.  We  have  always 
felt  that  we  partly  owe  our  lives  to  you — father  and  I — 
since  the  day  of  the  storm,  and — "  Philip  lifted  his 
hand  with  an  appealing  gesture.  "  Well,  there's  nothing 
else  to  say,  except  that  I'm  very  sorry.  But,  oh,  Mr. 
Deed,"  she  cried  suddenly,  "  why  won't  you  make  it  up 
with  him,  whatever  it  is — and  be — be  friends  ?  I'm  sure 
he  can't  have  done  anything  very  bad — nothing  that 
could  make  it  right  that  you  should  turn  from  him.  He 
is  good — sometimes  he  is  hard,  and  he  is  always  master 
ful  :  yes — but  he  is  good.  You  must  feel  that." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Philip ;  "  I  feel  that." 

She  glanced  at  him  doubtfully,  as  if  in  question  of  his 
tone. 

"  I'm  sure  I've  every  reason  to  know  of  his  goodness," 
she  said,  after  a  pause,  with  feeling.  "  If  it  hadn't  been 
for  that—" 

"  You  wouldn't  have  been  here  to  appreciate  it  with 
me,  perhaps.  No  ;  I  remember  that.  It's  another  of  the 
quiet  things,  done  without  talk  or  fuss,  by  which  Jasper 
has  put  me  in  his  debt.  I  owe  him  a  great  deal,  Miss 
Maurice — more  than  you  know." 

Again  she  hesitated  at  an  indefinable  note  in  his  voice ; 
but  she  said  immediately,  with  her  usual  openness  : 

"  I  suppose  an  elder  brother  has  always  that  great  ad 
vantage — the  advantage  of  being  able  to  do  a  great  deal 
for  a  younger  brother.  It  must  be  very  pleasant  to  him, 
and  he  must  always  wish,  if  he  is  a  man  like  your  brother, 
to  do  always  a  little  more,  that  he  may  be  able  to  make 
you  forget  his  friendly  advantage  over  you  by  the  mere 
quantity  of  his  friendliness." 

In  the  midst  of  his  pain  and  bitterness,  Philip  could 


204  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

not  help  smiling  faintly  at  this,  but  he  said,  with  less  care 
about  his  tone :  "  Oh,  yes ;  I've  never  had  to  complain  of 
short  weight  with  Jasper.  He  doesn't  do  things  by  halves. 
When  he  does  a  really  friendly  thing,  he  heaps  the  meas 
ure  up,  and  runs  it  over.  I  don't  always  know  what  to  do 
with  so  much  magnanimity.  You  can't  put  a  landslide 
in  your  pocket,  you  know,  Miss  Maurice,  and  sometimes 
you  can't  even  find  your  manners  in  time  to  make  your 
bow." 

She  could  not  avoid  feeling  the  sardonic  undertone 
this  time,  and  she  thought  she  saw,  at  once,  that  the  cause 
of  offence  between  them,  whatever  it  was,  was  largely  du.e 
to  Mr.  Philip  Deed's  sensitive,  almost  nervous,  pride ;  and 
she  thought,  too,  that  she  could  guess  pretty  clearly,  from 
her  knowledge  of  the  two  men,  something  about  what 
would  be  the  usual  situation  between  them.  She  could 
see  how  Philip  might  detest  his  brother  at  times  for  his 
very  power  of  doing  him  favours.  She  knew  how  that  was, 
herself.  She  was  painfully  aware  in  herself  of  the  strain 
of  meanness,  or  self-will,  or  conceit, — she  did  not  know 
what  it  was, — that  made  the  kind  of  generosity  which  is 
open-handed  enough  to  allow  another  to  be  generous 
among  the  most  difficult  kinds  of  unselfishness,  and  she 
could  understand — yes,  she  could  understand  entirely — 
how  Philip  (whose  pride  would  be  less  manageable  than 
her  own  by  the  degree  in  which  it  was  a  man's  and  com 
manding)  would  feel  this  peculiarly.  The  very  delicacy 
with  which  Jasper  would  try  to  conceal  a  kindness  would 
be  an  added  offence :  the  need  for  delicacy  was  itself 
humiliating.  She  could  imagine  how  Philip  would  be 
come  angered  on  provocation  of  this  sort,  and  how  Jasper 
would  helplessly  make  the  matter  worse — not  that  there 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  205 

would  be  any  way  of  making  it  better—  by  his  forbearance. 
It  would  be  the  kind  of  case  in  which  neither  was  to 
blame,  and  in  which  each  must  blame  the  other. 

Filled  with  this  idea,  she  said,  with  a  note  of  sympathy 
in  her  voice  that  at  first  bewildered  and  then  angered 
Philip,  and  finally  caused  him  to  laugh  a  little  to  himself 
at  the  completeness  of  her  error :  "  I'm  sure  we  must  all 
have  felt  that.  It's  strange,  isn't  it,  that  it  should  be  so 
hard  to  accept  a  kindness  as  we  all  find  it  ?  One  would 
think  that  the  effort  connected  with  a  kindness  would  be 
all  over  when  it  had  been  done.  It  isn't  so  very  easy  even 
to  do  it ;  but  to  receive  it  needs  heroism.  At  least  I  find 
it  does.  And  I  can  understand  how  you  would  feel  that 
way  about  your  brother,  even  when  you  were  most  grate 
ful  to  him ;  and  you  would  all  the  time  be  divided  be 
tween  a  wish  to  make  him  feel  how  much  you  appreciated 
his  kindness,  and  a  wish  to  box  his  ears." 

"  Oh,  it's  not  a  divided  wish,"  said  Philip,  falling  in 
with  her  mistake  as  the  easiest  defence  that  offered ;  and 
at  this  they  both  laughed. 

"  His  ears  must  be  smarting  most  of  the  time,"  said 
she,  as  her  laugh  ended  in  a  smile. 

"  Why,  no ;  not  all  the  time,"  returned  Philip,  un 
warily. 

"  You  mean — "  she  began,  still  smiling. 

"Nothing  that  I'd  better  tell  you,"  he  said,  quickly 
withdrawing. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Deed,"  she  exclaimed,  with  an  electrical  re 
turn  to  soberness,  "  I  see  that  there  is  something  really 
serious  between  you — something  that  I  mustn't  intrude 
on.  Forgive  me  !  I  have  been  thinking  it  one  of  those 
little  disagreements  that  a  word  would  set  right — one  of 


206  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

those  wretched  mistakes  where  two  persons  need  only  to 
be  explained  to  each  other.  I  see  I  can't  do  it ;  but  you 
can,  Mr.  Deed." 

"  What  ?    Explain  myself  to  Jasper  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Make  it  right  with  him,  or  whatever 
men  call  it.  Some  one  has  always  to  play  the  generous 
part,  don't  you  think,  where  there  has  been — has  been  a 
disagreement  ?  " 

"No,  Miss  Maurice;  I  can't  do  that."  He  turned 
away  from  her,  and  strode  towards  the  window. 

"  Oh,  that  is  not  like  you,  Mr.  Deed  !  He  would  not 
hesitate,  I  am  sure,  in  your  place." 

"  In  my  place  ?  "  returned  he.  She  began  to  stammer 
a  reply  ;  but  he  said,  "  Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon — my  place, 
in  the  wrong?  No ;  my  brother  would  not  hesitate  in  my 
place." 

"  I  did  not  say  that,"  she  put  in  sorrowfully.  She  saw 
that  she  had  implied  it. 

"  It  doesn't  need  saying,  Miss  Maurice.  You  only 
recognize  a  universal  fact.  There  are  laws  of  character, 
you  know,  and  a  planetary  orbit  is  wobbly  to  them. 
Everybody  who  knows  us  at  all  would  know,  without 
telling,  that  in  any  question  between  us  I  must  be  in  the 
wrong." 

"And  are  you  in  the  wrong  in  this?"  she  asked 
earnestly.  "Tell  me  frankly.  I  will  believe  whatever 
you  say.  You  bewilder  me.  I  don't  know  what  to  think. 
Tell  me  ! "  she  repeated. 

Philip  laughed  harshly.     "  You  must  ask  Jasper  that." 

"  I  will,"  she  said. 

"No;  don't,  Miss  Maurice.  Don't  on  any  account. 
Don't  think  of  such  a  thing." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  207 

"  Ah,  he  would  be  more  fair ! " 

"  Promise  me  that  you  will  not  say  a  word  of  this  to 
Jasper." 

"  Tell  me  yourself,  then,  Mr.  Deed." 

Philip  took  a  turn  up  and  down  the  room.  "  I  can't," 
he  said  at  last. 

"  You  see  what  you  leave  me  to  think,"  she  said  sadly. 

"  Nothing  good  of  me,"  he  answered  bitterly. 

She  glanced  up  at  his  face.  The  frankness  and  gen 
uineness  which  she  had  always  liked  in  his  look  shone 
through  the  hurt  which  possessed  him,  and  gave  her  con 
fidence  to  say,  looking  up  to  the  tall,  strong-limbed  figure 
standing  above  her,  "  Do  you  think  it  just  to  your  brother 
to  leave  him  under  the  imputation  of  such  a  silence  ?  " 

Philip  started.     "  Jasper  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Surely.  Your  silence  implies — it  seems  to  say  that 
your  brother  is  somehow  much  in  the  wrong  ;  or  else — " 

"  Or  else  ?  "  asked  Philip,  steadily. 

"  I  will  not  say  what  else.  But  if  that  is  so,  it  is  fair, 
it  is  right,  that  you  should  tell  me."  She  sat  down  ab 
ruptly,  as  if  not  quite  certain  of  herself. 

Philip  felt,  girdingly,  the  extreme  inconvenience  at 
taching  to  all  endeavours  to  do  the  fair-minded  thing — 
the  impossibility,  namely,  of  explaining  with  decency. 

"  In  order  that  you  may  not  be  thinking  me  much  in 
the  wrong?  "  he  said.  "  No,  Miss  Maurice  ;  I  couldn't  do 
that."  He  turned  away. 

"You  are  not  fair,"  she  said,  after  a  moment,  with 
dignity.  "  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  right  or  wrong 
in  the  matter.  I  am  ignorant  of  everything  but  that  you 
would  not  bow  to  your  brother  in  my  presence.  I  have 
put  my  plea  on  the  score  of  peacemaking,  and  if  you  feel 
14 


208  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

that  I  have  meddled,  I  am  rightly  served ;  but  I  have  a 
right  to  ask  why  you  should  put  a  slight  on  a  gentleman 
whom  you  meet  here  as — as — "  her  voice  broke — "  as  my 
guest,  Mr.  Deed." 

He  came  back  and  stood  before  her.  "  You  have  a 
right  to  ask  that,  Miss  Maurice,  and  perhaps  I  have  no 
right  not  to  answer  you.  But  I  cannot  answer  you." 

"  Then  I  must  think—" 

"  That  I  have  done  a  wrong  to  Jasper  which  I  am  un 
willing  to  repair  or  own.  Yes,  Miss  Maurice." 

"  I  do  not  mean  that,"  she  said  wistfully,  and  he  saw 
that  she  was  on  the  verge  of  tears,  yet  had  to  blunder 
savagely  on. 

"  What  else  can  you  mean  ?  There  is  but  the  choice. 
You  must  believe  in  Jasper  or  in  me." 

"  Oh,  I  knew  it ! "  she  cried,  as  if  to  herself.  "  I  fore 
saw  it !  It  was  for  that  that  I  had  to  try  to  make  it  right 
between  you.  I  could  not  bear — "  She  broke  down  sud 
denly. 

"  You  mean  that  you  wished  to  keep  us  both  for  friends. 
You  know  now  that  that  is  impossible.  We  are  enemies. 
We  cannot  have  or  keep  a  common  friend.  Which  will 
you  choose  ?  " 

The  passionate  tone  of  demand  roused  her.  She 
straightened  herself  imperceptibly  in  her  seat  on  the 
couch,  and  raised  her  head,  looking  up,  and  confronting 
his  flushed  face. 

"  I  will  answer  your  question  when  you  have  answered 
mine,"  she  said. 

She  rose,  and  held  out  her  hand  listlessly.  Philip  took 
it  as  formally,  and  suddenly  left  the  room.  His  head  was 
down.  He  felt  sick — spiritually  sick  to  his  inmost  fibre. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  209 


XIV. 

PHILIP  went  out  and  got  on  his  horse,  and  rode  fu 
riously  towards  the  "  Snow  Find."  This  was  the  end,  he 
supposed.  And  for  this,  again,  he  had  to  thank  Jasper. 
He  gnashed  his  teeth  as  he  set  his  spur  in  the  pony's  flank 
and  swept  over  the  long  level  stretch  by  the  river,  outside 
the  town.  He  had  made  a  fool  of  himself  again,  and,  as 
usual,  not  in  a  way  in  which  Jasper  would  have  made  a 
fool  of  himself.  His  sense  of  the  unhandsomeness,  of  the 
impossibility,  of  telling  her  of  the  actual  state  of  the  case 
between  them  seemed  in  this  open  light  of  the  prairie, 
with  the  wind  blowing  in  his  face,  an  incredible  piece  of 
folly.  Why  should  he  consider  Jasper  ?  Would  he  have 
spared  him  in  the  same  situation  ? 

He  saw  at  once  that  this  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
matter,  and  that  it  was  not  for  Jasper's  sake  that  he 
had  held  his  tongue.  It  was  for  his  own :  he  couldn't 
have  gone  on  living  in  the  body  of  a  man  who  had  told 
her  that.  If  he  had  told  it  he  knew  very  well  with 
what  object  he  would  have  spoken.  He  would  have  done 
it  to  malign  his  rival  to  her  (it  had  come  to  that  between 
him  and  Jasper ;  he  might  as  well  face  it) ;  he  would 
have  done  it  to  take  a  sneaking  advantage  with  a  woman 
of  an  opportunity  to  spike  another  man's  guns.  That 
would  be  bad  enough  with  any  man  for  his  rival ;  but 
with  Jasper  it  would  be  a  thing  which  he  would  never 
be  able  to  hold  up  his  head  after  doing.  It  became  too 
dirty  a  piece  of  reprisal  to  think  of.  The  perception  of 
the  impossibility  of  doing  anything  to  Jasper's  injury, 
which  he  had  urged  upon  his  father,  had  laid  a  firm  and 


210  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

withholding  grip  upon  him  in  the  midst  of  the  tempta 
tion  to  tell  her  everything ;  and  now  it  reasserted  itself 
as  a  final  motive,  as  a  thing  not  to  be  questioned  or 
dodged ;  as  a  principle  to  which  he  must  be  faithful, 
wholly  without  regard  to  what  it  might  cost  him.  It  had 
cost  him  indirectly  his  father's  friendship,  already,  and 
had  driven  his  father  to  the  wretched  refuge  of  flight 
from  an  imagined  evil ;  and  now  it  had  probably  cost  his 
own  happiness.  He  cursed  Jasper,  as  he  thought  of  it, 
between  his  teeth. 

He  was  glad  to  be  going  to  Durango  on  the  morrow 
to  seek  his  father ;  he  thought  he  should  remain  a  week. 
But  in  the  event  he  was  back  the  second  day.  It  had  be 
come  a  necessity  to  him  to  see  her,  if  only  at  a  hopeless 
distance. 

Dorothy  often  bit  her  lip  in  the  days  immediately 
following  Philip's  call,  when  she  thought  of  the  part  she\ 
had  played.  She  had  been  wrong  in  meddling,  of  course, 
and  she  accused  herself  bitterly ;  but  she  also  accused 
him.  What  right  had  he  to  drag  her  into  the  question 
between  himself  and  his  brother,  whatever  it  was  ?  Why 
should  she  take  sides  ?  She  said  to  herself  that,  whatever 
he  might  do,  he  should  not  change  her  neutrality.  She 
was  the  friend  of  both.  What  effect  could  any  quarrel 
between  them  have  upon  that  fact  ?  She  was  most  their 
friend  when  she  refused  to  allow  their  difference  to  in 
vade  her  relation  to  them.  She  was  grateful  to  Jasper 
for  refraining  from  making  on  his  part  so  difficult  a  de 
mand  upon  her  friendship  ;  she  felt  his  silence  about  the 
whole  matter  to  be  a  fine  generosity.  It  delicately  im 
plied  the  real  character  of  the  difference  between  the 
brothers  as  she  had  guessed  it  from  the  first ;  it  was  part 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  211 

of  that  forbearance  which  he  would  have  used  to  avoid 
the  quarrel  itself,  and  which  he  would  now  be  the  first  to 
tender  to  his  brother  if  he  would  accept  it.  The  other 
kind  of  generosity — the  freedom  with  which  Philip  gave 
himself  and  all  that  he  had  in  the  smaller  daily  matters — 
she  saw  was,  after  all,  a  less  deep  and  genuine  unselfish 
ness  than  this  patient  restraint  and  self-effacement  of 
Jasper's.  In  smaller  things  his  attitude  had  not  the 
charm  of  Philip's  gay  and  thoughtless  open-handedness ; 
but  when  a  serious  opportunity  arose — an  opportunity  for 
a  brave  and  self-denying  magnanimity — it  was  easy  to  see 
which  was  the  stronger.  She  said  to  herself  that  it  was 
true,  what  she  had  often  thought,  that  Philip  was  light. 

When  a  woman  makes  reflections  like  these,  it  would 
be  a  mistake  to  seek  their  basis  wholly  in  the  psycholog 
ical  facts  with  which  she  believes  herself  to  be  reasoning. 
It  was  at  all  events  true  that  before  Dorothy  had  matured 
all  of  these  thoughts  about  the  character  of  the.  brothers, 
Philip  had  remained  away  from  the  house  several  days, 
and  that  a  certain  chivalric  reserve  in  Jasper's  bearing 
towards  an  old  question  between  them  had  renewed  in 
her  a  vague  remorse. 

She  had  supposed  herself  to  have  settled  all  that,  to 
have  put  it  away  in  the  lumber-room  of  her  memory, 
where  she  need  visit  it  only  in  those  moments  of  senti 
ment  when  a  dreamy  willingness  to  pain  herself  possessed 
her.  But  a  discarded  lover  is  both  a  more  material  and  a 
more  importunate  fact  when  he  happens  to  be  in  the 
same  town  than  when  he  lives  before  the  mental  vision 
only  in  the  letter  of  dignified  complaint  which  must 
be  answered  with  the  statement  of  an  unhappy  truth. 
Jasper,  in  the  flesh,  patient,  unreproachf  ul,  and  obdurately 


212  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

faithful  to  a  love  which  she  had  fancied  as  dead  in  him 
as  it  was  in  her,  was  a  different  man  from  the  one  she 
had  pictured  as  suffering  for  as  long  a  time  as  her  action 
had  remained  a  vivid  theme  of  remorse  to  her,  and  as 
getting  over  it  by  the  same  gradual  process  through  which 
she  had  emerged  from  her  remorse.  He  had  not  got  over 
it,  and  he  was  by  her  side. 

Their  engagement,  if  one  could  call  it  that, — if  it  was 
the  kind  of  engagement  on  which  marriage  is  supposed 
to  follow ;  Dorothy  believed  that  she  had  never  called  it 
that  to  herself, — had  been  one  of  the  school-boy  and  -girl 
follies  at  which  one  smiles  with  wonder  at  twenty-five,  and- 
tells  to  one's  grandchildren  at  sixty  with  a  fond  laugh, 
and  a  passing  inward  question  touching  the  colour  of 
those  curls  now.  It  had  been  a  pleasant  diversion  between 
them — the  kind  of  thing  which  is  a  little  more  intense 
and  a  little  more  entertaining  than  the  tennis  that  one 
would  be  playing  at  that  age  if  one  were  not  engaged  in 
being  engaged ;  but  to  think  of  it  as  the  sort  of  stuff  of 
which  one  would  make  a  life,  was  to  speak  from  the  dis 
ordered  outlook  upon  things  in  which  all  measures  and 
values  melt  into  a  mess  of  triviality. 

It  had  lasted  between  them  until  Dorothy  began  to 
go  out  into  society,  and  to  see  the  world  and  other  men. 
She  did  not  begin  to  compare,  then,  but  she  perceived  a 
betrothal  to  be  a  different  matter  from  the  agreeable  play 
thing  it  had  seemed  at  school :  she  began  to  question  with 
her  conscience  whether  she  had  a  right  to  go  on  with  so 
serious  a  thing  unseriously.  Was  it  dealing  fairly  by 
him?  She  saw  that  it  was  not;  yet  she  tried,  with  a 
woman's  devotion  to  an  impossible  unselfishness,  to  keep 
it  up.  Jasper  had  gone  West  to  the  ranch  by  this  time, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  213 

and  in  degree  as  the  affair  seemed  wrong  and  mistaken  to 
her,  she  found  herself  endeavouring  to  make  up  to  him 
for  the  wrong  (which,  if  it  was  really  any  of  hers,  was 
hers  unconsciously)  by  writing  him  more  faithfully. 
This,  too,  seemed  dishonest,  after  a  time,  and,  in  despair, 
she  let  the  correspondence  flag,  believing,  or  hoping,  that 
he  would  divine  what  had  happened,  and  that  he  would 
save  her  the  pain  of  explaining.  Surely  it  was  natural 
enough  ;  he  was  a  man  by  this  time,  as  she  was  a  woman, 
and  he  must  know  how  inevitable  it  was. 

He  perceived  as  quickly  as  she  could  have  desired  that 
there  was  a  change ;  but  he  showed  no  inclination  to  spare 
her  in  defining  it.  Brought  face  to  face  with  the  neces 
sity  for  action,  she  passed  a  bitter  time,  in  which  she 
struggled  with  her  conscience  and  the  proprieties.  To  a 
young  girl  it  still  seems  doubtful  whether,  after  all,  she 
may  not  better  wreck  her  life  and  a  man's  than  be  talked 
about.  In  her  highest  moments  of  self-sacrifice  she 
thought  she  could  go  on  with  it;  then  it  would  come 
time  to  write  him  a  letter,  and  she  would  see  that  she 
could  not  even  do  as  much  as  that.  How  was  she  to  live 
with  him  for  fifty  years  ? 

Jasper's  complaint  took  at  last  that  tone  of  demand 
which  lay  under  the  surface  of  his  most  pliant  moods; 
and  in  the  end  she  saw  that  she  must  write  him  all  that 
was  in  her  heart.  It  was  a  very  right-spirited  letter,  tell 
ing  him  the  bare  truth  :  that  she  did  not  love  him  as  she 
had  supposed,  that  to  marry  with  no  better  feeling  than 
she  could  bring  to  him  would  be  a  permanent  wrong  to 
both  him  and  her,  and  would  merely  procure  their  com 
mon  unhappiness ;  and  begging  him  to  release  her  from 
their  engagement.  Jasper  came  on  to  the  Pennsylvania 


214:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

city  where  her  father  was  just  then  settled  over  a  church, 
and  an  interview  followed  of  the  sort  which  men  and 
women  remember  on  their  death-beds.  But  she  did  not 
yield,  and  Jasper  went  back  to  the  ranch  a  changed  man. 
He  was  hard  about  women  now ;  he  felt  himself  cruelly 
misused.  He  was  very  bitter.  He  said  to  himself  that 
he  did  not  care  what  he  did  now.  She  was  responsible 
for  it.  He  had  said  as  much  to  her  in  his  anger.  Doro 
thy,  in  fact,  stood  for  and  symbolized  every  good  thought 
that  he  had  ever  had  :  she  was  the  goddess  of  his  dreams 
of  being  some  time  a  little  cleaner  and  a  more  straight 
forward  man  than  he  had  yet  contrived  to  be.  He  was 
accustomed  to  say  that  she  could  do  anything  with  him, 
and  he  had  kept  her  in  a  species  of  bondage  to  this,  while 
they  had  been  together  during  their  engagement. 

This  was  one  of  the  facts  which  had  wrought  upon 
Dorothy  while  it  was  still  a  question  whether  she  should 
do  right  to  break  the  engagement ;  it  was  part  of  the 
perilous  power  that  there  is  for  every  woman  in  the  pas 
sionate  need  for  her  of  a  man  who  does  not  on  other 
accounts  create  an  answering  need  in  her.  It  is  perhaps 
a  phase  of  the  mother  instinct  into  which  all  forms  of 
woman's  love  tend  to  dissolve ;  but  it  is  certainly  always 
an  argument  with  a  woman  strong  out  of  all  proportion 
to  its  actual  validity ;  and  it  had  not  only  been  a  part  of 
the  reluctant  push  towards  the  self-sacrifice  she  had  once 
contemplated,  but,  in  meeting  Jasper,  the  sense  of  it  was 
found  to  have  still  a  power  for  pain. 

She  was  surprised  and  chagrined  that  it  should  be  so, 
but  so  it  was;  and  in  the  solitude  of  her  chamber  at 
night,  after  Jasper  had  taken  away  his  melancholy  eyes, 
with  the  look  of  a  settled  sorrow  in  them,  and  she  had 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  215 

freed  herself  from  the  influence  of  his  patient  reserve 
about  all  that  had  been  between  them,  she  wept  miserable 
tears.  She  dried  them  when  she  remembered  to  be  indig 
nant  at  his  attitude.  She  would  rather  a  thousand  times 
be  upbraided  for  what  she  had  done — if  she  had  done 
anything — than  to  be  arraigned  by  that  deferential  silence 
which  forbearingly  would  not  bring  its  charge.  It  was  a 
studied  insult,  she  said  to  herself.  But  the  next  day  it 
seemed  a  chivalry  beyond  praise.  It  seemed  this  most 
when  she  recognized,  as  she  found  herself  doing  in  occa 
sional  flashes,  her  girlish  ideal  in  his  handsome  face  and 
figure,  his  daring  and  commanding  manner,  his  air  of 
power,  his  effect  of  having  his  hand  on  the  wheel  of  the 
earth,  his  brilliant  and  indomitable  will. 

Jasper  came  often  during  this  period  of  Philip's  with 
drawal  ;  but  she  never  proposed  to  him  the  question  she 
had  told  Philip  she  should  ask  him.  Something  in  his 
manner  when  she  mentioned  Philip  forbade  it;  and  it 
would  be  unfair,  she  saw,  to  make  him  own  up  to  the  gal 
lant  gentleness  and  magnanimity  he  would  have  used  in 
all  this  affair  with  his  sensitive  and  high-strung  brother. 
The  use  of  the  adjectives  that  both  condemned  and 
praised  him  brought  Philip  sharply  before  her  mind,  and 
she  felt  again,  as  if  it  had  been  at  the  moment,  the  pain 
that  the  scene  between  them  had  given  her.  She  liked 
him  too  well  to  wish  to  hurt  him,  and  she  had  felt  that 
she  was  hurting  him  with  every  word  she  said.  Perhaps 
he  was  too  easily  wounded ;  but  that  seemed,  now,  a  fault 
that  one  might  forgive — nay,  certainly  ought  to  forgive — 
to  such  an  occasion.  How  hot-headed  he  was !  She 
found  herself  saying  this,  with  a  kind  of  laughing  fond 
ness,  to  herself.  It  seemed  suddenly  almost  a  likable 


216  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

trait  in  him.  It  was  his  fineness — the  wrong  side  of  it, 
to  be  sure,  but  still  his  fineness.  And  if  he  was  swift  to 
anger,  he  was  swift  to  feel :  it  was  because  of  that.  It 
was  easy  for  other  men  to  be  calm  :  they  did  not  care  so 
much — perhaps  did  not  care  at  all.  This  made  her  think 
of  Jasper ;  and  to  think  of  Jasper  made  her  lift  her  eyes 
from  her  type- writer,  and  allow  her  glance  to  rove  out  of 
doors,  with  an  impulsive  wish  that  it  might  be  Philip  in 
stead  of  Jasper  with  whom  she  was  to  ride  at  two  o'clock. 
The  Maurices'  house  stood,  not  far  from  the  Vertners', 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  the  sun  swept  an  un 
broken  stretch  of  plain  to  look  on  Dorothy  at  her  win 
dow.  The  glowing  light  and  the  brisk  air  without  gave 
her  a  longing  to  be  galloping  away  into  the  shining  day. 
Her  eyes  rested  with  liking  on  the  broad,  sunlit  level 
reaching  to  the  mountains.  If  she  looked  straight  before 
her  she  could  keep  the  prospect  untouched  by  the  sight 
of  a  single  habitation.  She  heaved  a  little  sigh.  She 
should  probably  never  meet  Philip  again,  let  alone  ride 
with  him.  The  outlook  from  her  window  gave  all  her 
thoughts  a  pleasant  turn,  however ;  and  she  saw  herself 
forgiving  something  to  any  one  who  should  ride  up  into 
the  foreground  of  this  prospect  leading  a  saddle-horse. 


XV. 

JASPER  took  up  the  interrupted  thread  of  his  life  at 
the  ranch  with  zest,  in  ignorance  of  what  had  happened 
in  his  absence.  It  gave  him  an  agreeable  thrill  to  resume 
his  place,  to  vault  into  the  seat  of  authority,  once  more, 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  2  IT 

in  putting  his  leg  over  Vixen's  back.  He  wondered,  as 
he  went  about  on  his  horse,  hearing  reports  and  giving 
orders,  why  he  ever  abandoned  even  temporarily  this  little 
kingdom,  where  his  word  was  law,  and  where  he  could 
see  from  day  to  day  his  personal  foresight,  shrewdness, 
and  force  taking  visible  shape  in  the  increase  of  his  herd, 
in  the  extension  of  his  domain,  and  in  the  growth  of  his 
influence  among  the  cattle-men  of  the  district.  Yes,  it 
was  a  mistake  to  spend  his  time  in  running  across  the 
continent,  while  this  position  was  his  at  home — a  position 
which  he  would  not  barter  for  that  of  any  one  he  knew ; 
which  he  would  not  sell,  knowing  what  he  did  of  the  fu 
ture  it  promised,  for  any  sum  he  was  likely  to  be  offered ; 
and  which  he  would  not  share  with  any  one  on  earth. 

Ah,  yes.  To  be  sure  he  had  done  right  to  go  to  New 
York.  The  intention  he  foresaw  in  his  father  to  force 
the  question  of  Philip's  share  in  the  range  on  him,  before 
his  marriage,  threatened  the  position  itself.  It  was  not  a 
thing  he  could  wish  to  face  out  personally ;  and  if  he  had 
ever  had  the  slightest  inclination  to  divide  his  power  at 
the  ranch,  this  would  have  been  the  last  time  he  would 
have  selected.  Just  now,  when  the  fruits  of  the  hard 
work,  the  sagacity,  the  devotion  of  his  five  years  on  the 
range  began  to  show,  was  he  to  share  results — and,  much 
worse,  control  over  future  results — with  Philip  ?  He  had 
borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day,  had  watered  and 
tended  his  little  tree,  had  suffered  and  groaned  and 
sweated  to  bring  it  to  bearing ;  and  here  came  Philip 
loafing,  in  his  usual  way,  into  a  soft  thing  that  some  one 
else  had  paid  for,  and  wanting  to  help  pick  the  fruit  and 
reorganize  gardening  methods.  Jasper  had  looked  on 
with  a  scornful  eye  while  Philip  spread  his  series  of  idle 


218  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

and  fatuous  experiments  over  a  wide  geography.  If  his 
father  was  willing  to  pay  for  such  cleverness  in  devising 
schemes  for  dodging  the  main  point,  he  wasn't.  The 
main  point,  as  he  saw  it,  was  work — hard  work,  guided 
by  stiff  common  sense.  He  was  a  worker  himself,  and  he 
wasn't  taking  into  partnership  fellows  who  liked  fishing 
better  than  fence-building,  and  who,  in  place  of  his  ca 
pacity  for  making  one  dollar  two,  knew  only  how  to 
spend  one  and  borrow  two. 

In  Maverick,  Jasper  was  welcomed  back  heartily,  for 
the  most  part.  There  were  men  who  had  been  over 
reached  by  him  in  a  cattle-trade  who  marred  the  pleasure 
he  found  in  the  general  acclamation  by  avoiding  him,  or 
by  greeting  him  surlily ;  there  was  a  widow  whom  he  had 
been  obliged  to  press  in  a  little  foreclosure  matter  con 
nected  with  a  house  he  had  bought  on  speculation  in 
Maverick,  and  she  had  her  circle  of  sympathizers.  But 
these  were  trifling  notes  in  the  chorus  of  good-will.  Just 
before  leaving  for  New  York,  Jasper  had  succeeded  in 
organizing  the  cattle-men  of  the  valley  into  a  Mutual  Pro 
tective  Association,  designed  to  check  cattle-thieving  (by 
which  many  owners  had  suffered  heavily  of  late) ;  to  ap 
ply  a  stricter  system  to  the  round-ups ;  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
loose  practice  of  branding  mavericks,  wherever  found,  be 
tween  round-ups ;  to  join  other  associations  in  petitioning 
Congress  for  a  better  law  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  foot- 
and-mouth  disease. among  cattle;  and  especially  to  keep 
all  newcomers  out  of  the  valley,  the  association  officially 
declaring  the  range  to  be  overstocked. 

There  had  been  certain  difficulties  in  forming  the 
combination;  half  a  dozen  forces,  from  various  causes, 
were  against  it ;  and  the  fact  that  Jasper,  against  all  op- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  219 

position,  had  pushed  his  plan  to  a  successful  conclusion 
had  given  him,  in  his  absence,  a  new  and  stronger  posi 
tion  in  Maverick.  He  had  always  been  popular  ;  but  the 
town  now  began  to  feel  that  it  owed  him  something. 
There  was  even  talk  of  nominating  him  in  the  spring  for 
the  office  his  father  had  once  held ;  and  it  was  said  that, 
if  he  played  his  cards  well,  he  needn't  stop  at  the  may 
oralty. 

At  least  one  eye  watched  interestedly  the  subdued  and 
decent  air  of  triumph  with  which  Jasper  received  these 
signs  of  the  predominance  which  he  might  presently 
claim  in  the  town.  Mr.  Snell's  sagacious  glance  pursued 
him  furtively  from  behind  the  windows  of  his  Miners' 
Supply  Store,  as  he  rode  by  on  horseback,  when  he  came 
into  Maverick  from  the  ranch — following  his  disappear 
ance  down  the  street  with  a  sardonic  smile,  and  a  slow, 
humorous  working  of  his  tongue  within  his  cheek,  which 
seemed  to  do  him  good. 

They  were  all  at  Ira's  one  night  when  some  one  said 
that  he  supposed  the  next  thing  they  would  hear  would 
be  that  Jasper  had  bought  out  his  father's  half  interest  in 
the  ranch.  He  said  that  he  had  heard — he  didn't  know 
whether  there  was  anything  in  it  or  not,  of  course,  but  he 
had  heard — that  Jasper  had  made  an  almighty  good  thing 
in  stocks  while  he  was  on  in  New  York.  Trust  him  for 
knowing  a  good  thing !  He  seemed  to  have  his  father's 
long  business  head  with  something  else  besides — some 
thing  like  clutch.  Nobody  ever  heard  of  his  letting  go  of 
anything  that  he  once  laid  his  fist  over,  and  his  father, 
spite  of  his  will  (it  was  a  dose  for  an  adult,  that  will ;  the 
speaker  had  tried  it),  had  let  things  slip,  and  lost  a  for 
tune.  It  would  be  queer  if  Jasper  should  pull  up  and 


220  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

pass  his  father  in  the  race,  now  wouldn't  it  ?  It  would  be 
like  Deed  to  be  glad.  He  was  gone  on  those  sons  of  his. 
He  didn't  seem  to  have  his  natural  sense  where  they  were 
concerned.  But  it  would  be  interesting  if,  after  his  father 
had  given  him  a  half  share  in  the  partnership,  Jasper 
should  be  able  to  buy  the  other  half  for  himself. 

"  Queer  partnership,  that,  anyway,"  grunted  Mr.  Snell 
from  the  other  side  of  the  cloud  of  smoke  that  filled  the 
bar-room.  Snell  was  reputed  to  have  made  a  fortune  in 
fitting  out  mining-parties,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Lead- 
ville  boom,  with  a  very  bad  grade  of  goods  at  prices  not 
without  a  touch  of  naivete  for  the  impartial  spectator  noi 
obliged  to  pay  them.  And  he  had  made  a  good  thing  by 
"  grub-staking  "  two  or  three  young  men  who  had  been 
lucky  in  prospecting  the  hills  about  Aspen.  With  the 
coming  of  fortune  he  had  put  on  a  precise  habit  of  speech 
(it  was  a  carefully  made  garment,  but  the  old  would  some 
times  play  him  the  low  trick  of  showing  through  in  patch 
es),  and  had  waked  up  one  morning  with  a  respect  for 
himself  which  required  the  use  of  the  third  person  in  re 
ferring  to  Mr.  Snell. 

"What  Mr.  Snell  says  is  like  this,"  continued  Mr. 
Snell :  "  A  man's  all  off  as  soon  as  he  begins  bringing 
family  considerations  into  business.  Mr.  Snell  has  noth 
ing  against  them :  he's  a  family  man  himself.  But  he 
says  to  his  sons,  he  says,  '  Look  here  now,  Fred,  if  you 
want  anything  out  of  your  old  father,  you  have  got  to 
earn  it;  and  if  you  want  to  do  business  with  him,  you 
have  got  to  do  business  on  business  principles,  every  time, 
sir.'  And  he  does  it,  too,  gentlemen.  The  rate  of  inter 
est  is  just  as  high  under  Mr.  Snell's  roof  and  fig-tree  as  it 
is  down  at  his  store.  The  multiplication-table  was  always 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  221 

good  enough  for  me,  and  I  guess  it'll  have  to  do  for  my 
boys,"  he  added  grimly,  with  an  unwary  lapse  into  the 
first  person. 

"  Two  per  cent,  a  month,  unquestionable  security, 
notes  protested  right  along — that's  what  does  it,  gentle 
men.  Ask  no  favours,  and  take  none ;  and  more  especially 
have  a  cast-iron,  copper-riveted,  water-tight  contract  with 
your  relatives,  if  you're  foolish  enough  to  have  any,  and 
bail  the  machine  dry  of  family  feeling  before  you  start. 
Now,  Mr.  Deed  has  got  a  notion  in  his  head,  near  as  I  can 
make  out,  that  there's  two  answers  to  twice  two.  Down 
in  town  here  it  makes  four ;  but  out  at  the  ranch,  when 
he's  dealing  with  that  son  of  his,  Jasper,  it  makes  five,  or 
three,  or  some  other  fool  figger." 

A  loyal  murmur  rose  from  the  crowd  at  this,  and  Snell 
concluded  doggedly  :  "  Well,  anyway,  what  Mr.  Snell  says 
is  like  this :  '  There's  a  place  for  everything,'  he  says, '  and 
the  place  for  family  feeling  is  at  the  family  fireside.' " 

"Family  furnace  up  Mr.  Snell's  way,  ain't' it,  Snell?" 
asked  one  of  the  group.  He  was  joked  on  his  peculiarity, 
of  course,  but  the  town  did  not  venture  far  in  this  direc 
tion.  He  owned  a  good  share  of  the  houses  of  Maverick, 
was  a  hard  landlord,  and  employed  a  number  of  people  in 
his  business  and  at  his  mines.  Times  were  not  always — 
perhaps  never — of  the  best  in  Maverick ;  and  no  one  felt 
that  he  could  quite  afford  the  luxury  of  making  an  enemy 
of  Snell. 

"  I've  put  in  a  furnace  lately,  sir,  I  admit.  Yes,  sir," 
said  he,  truculently ;  "  and  I  may  be  out  of  my  count,"  he 
went  on,  with  a  remote  implication  which  was  not  lost  on 
men  who  liked  their  humour  oblique,  "  but  I  think — I  say 
I  think,  young  man — I've  got  a  receipt  for  the  coal  bill." 


222  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Come  back  to  make  things  hum  again  out  at  your 
ranch,  I  judge,"  Mr.  Snell  said  to  Jasper  when,  about  a 
week  after  the  talk  between  Dorothy  and  Philip,  Jasper 
stopped  his  horse  in  the  street  to  speak  to  him.  Jasper 
made  a  point  of  speaking  all  men  fair,  and  humouring  the 
willingness  of  everybody  to  believe  his  existence  a  con 
stant  matter  for  joyous  surprise  to  all  good  fellows. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Snell,  yes ;  things  get  to  loose  ends  in  the 
master's  absence,  don't  they  ?  Personal  supervision  is  the 
only  plan,  I  find.  I  know  it's  your  plan.  Not  many 
things  escape  your  eye." 

Mr.  Snell  drew  his  lips  to  a  point,  and,  stroking  them 
deprecatingly,  pretended  to  weigh  the  question.  "  Well, 
not  a  great,"  he  consented.  "  I  suppose,  now,  you  rather 
enjoy  seeing  the  wheels  start  up  again,"  he  went  on  in  a 
moment,  in  another  tone ;  "  like  to  crack  your  whip  and 
see  things  moving,  eh  ?  " 

Jasper  glanced  at  him.  "Why,  it's  pleasant  to  be 
back,"  he  said.  "  When  a  man  really  likes  his  business, 
there's  nothing  like  business,  after  all,  is  there,  Mr.  Snell  ?  " 

"  Nothing,"  agreed  Mr.  Snell — "  nothing.  Not  if  it  is 
your  business,  at  least,"  he  qualified  ;  "  not  if  you  run  the 
machine,  not  if  you're  on  top." 

"  Well,  we  shouldn't  care  to  be  anywhere  else,  should 
we,  Mr.  Snell  ?  "  laughed  Jasper,  easily. 

Mr.  Snell  flashed  his  furtive  look  on  him,  and  dropped 
his  eyes  immediately.  "  No,"  he  assented,  with  his  dry 
smile.  It  was  a  wrinkled  smile,  like  the  skin  of  a  last 
year's  apple,  withered  and  pensive  and  loose.  It  seemed 
to  become  in  a  moment  a  little  large  for  his  face,  and  he 
hastily  smoothed  it  out.  "  No,"  he  repeated  ;  "  I  don't 
believe  we  should.  You  wouldn't,  anyway,  I  judge.  You 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  223 

wouldn't  never  be  caught  hankering,  Mr.  Snell  guesses, 
for  the  place  of  that  fellow  in  the  theatre  orchestras  that 
hits  them  brasses  once  in  a  while,  and  dandles  them 
sleigh-bells,  and  whacks  his  drum  in  between.  I  guess,. 
if  any  one  was  to  do  much  figgering  about  your  place, 
they'd  see  you  belonged  a  leetle  nigher  the  middle  of  the 
orchestra — something  not  too  all-fired  far  from  the  con 
ductor's  chair ;  and  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  they  come 
around  to  the  idee  that  the  centre  of  his  chair  was  not  far 
off  the  right  thing.  You'd  want  a  baton  in  your  hand, 
and  then  matters  would  begin  to  rumble  around  there. 
Eh  ?  "  he  shouted  in  enjoyment,  rubbing  his  hands. 

Jasper  laughed.  He  could  enjoy  even  Mr.  Snell's 
attribution  of  the  naturalness  of  the  place  of  command  to 
him. 

Snell  went  away,  rubbing  his  hands  with  a  glee  out  of 
proportion  to  the  superficial  dimensions  of  the  joke ;  and 
when  he  was  alone  in  his  private  office  at  the  store,  drew 
a  paper  indorsed  u  Bill  of  Sale  of  '  Triangle  Outfit ' "  from 
a  bundle  of  documents  in  his  safe,  and,  seating  himself  in 
his  capacious  leather  chair,  read  it  over  in  smiling  silence. 

When  Jasper,  while  still  at  breakfast  next  morning, 
saw  Snell's  leathery  face  come  suddenly  into  the  sunny 
prospect  from  his  window,  appearing  and  disappearing 
with  the  motions  of  his  horse,  he  was  unable  to  imagine 
why  he  should  be  taking  the  long  ride  from  Maverick  at 
such  an  hour  to  see  him.  He  had  had  no  dealings  with 
him  for  nearly  a  year  ;  what  should,  he  want  of  him  ?  He 
accounted  for  his  presence  for  a  moment  by  the  fantastic 
supposition  that  Snell  was  running  out  to  see  him  for  a 
little  early  morning  exercise,  and  for  the  pleasure  of  a 
chat  with  him ;  and  he  allowed  himself  a  smile  at  this 
15 


224  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

idea.  Snell  no  more  took  aimless  exercise  on  horseback 
than  the  other  residents  of  Maverick  did,  and  if  it  was  a 
question  of  riding  five  miles  for  the  sake  of  a  chat  with 
him  (Jasper),  he  thought  he  saw  Suell  wasting  good  busi 
ness  time  in  that  fashion.  The  talk  of  yesterday  came 
back  to  him :  he  had  thought  at  the  time  that  old  Snell 
(he  called  him  old,  though  he  was  scarcely  fifty,  because, 
in  the  absence  of  the  absolutely  old  in  the  West,  middle 
age  has  to  typify  senility)  probably  wanted  something  with 
all  that  palavering,  and  here  he  was  to  make  what  profit 
he  could  out  of  it.  Jasper  determined  that  it  should  be 
small.  It  was  a  bore,  his  coming  at  breakfast-time. 
Couldn't  he  let  a  man  eat  his  meals  in  peace  ?  he  growled 
to  himself. 

Jasper  combined  with  his  habit  of  hard  work  certain 
luxurious  tastes,  which  he  did  not  allow  to  interfere  with 
business.  He  rose  early  for  work  (it  was  one  of  his  counts 
against  Philip  that  he  was  never  up  to  breakfast) ;  but  he 
liked  a  dash  of  Florida  water  in  his  bath,  and  spent  rather 
more  than  an  hour  in  grooming  himself  for  the  day.  He 
listened  to  reports  about  the  condition  of  things  within 
the  immediate  precinct  of  the  ranch-house  from  his  cow- 
( boy  cook  at  breakfast,  and  gave  him  his  orders  then  ;  but 
he  required  a  dainty  table  from  him,  and  did  not  spare 
the  daily  energy  necessary  to  secure  a  luxury  so  foreign 
to  every  condition  of  the  life  he  was  leading.  He  dressed 
like  his  men  because  they  would  not  have  tolerated  any 
thing  else,  and  because  it  was  part  of  his  pose  of  good 
fellow  to  make  himself  one  of  them ;  but  it  was  one  of 
the  marvels  of  the  Valley  that  he  should  be  allowed  to  go 
so  neat  without  losing  acceptance  with  his  cow-punchers. 
It  was  certainly  not  because  he  was  obviously  a  man  who 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  225 

must  be  neat  and  dainty  to  live,  that  this  unworthy  nice- 
ness  was  pardoned  in  him,  though  the  most  casual  glance 
must  have  shown  any  one  that, — but  through  the  respect 
he  commanded  among  his  men  on  other  accounts.  For  a 
range  of  fifty  miles  about  the  ranch  it  was  understood 
that  Jasper  Deed  was  not  the  man  one  would  choose  to 
monkey  with. 

The  loose  hang  of  his  dressing-gown  about  his  stal 
wart  figure,  as  he  sat  at  breakfast,  concealed  the  physical 
sufficiency  which  was  one  of  the  sources  of  this  feeling ; 
as  he  rose  and  stretched  himself  and  went  to  the  window 
to  bow  to  Snell,  with  his  hands  thrust  deep  into  the  low 
pockets  of  the  robe,  it  might  have  been  guessed,  perhaps. 
He  had,  in  fact,  no  such  strength  as  Philip's ;  but  his 
closely  knit  frame  gave  him  the  credit  to  the  eye  of  every 
ounce  of  force  in  him,  while  Philip's  sturdy  figure,  carried 
without  Jasper's  distinction,  had  only  the  effect  of  its  rude 
power.  Jasper  was  one  of  the  perfectly  molded  physical 
products  which  Nature  turns  out  in  her  most  careful  and 
workmanlike — perhaps  not  her  most  inspired — moods. 
He  was  built  like  a  firmly  rooted,  straight,  strong  young 
tree  ;  and  his  grace,  his  refinement,  his  physical  adequacy 
were  like  that ;  they  took  the  beholder  with  their  absolute 
adaptability  to  their  function,  with  the  propriety  of  their 
place  in  Nature.  It  was  this  effect  in  him  which  made  it 
seem  natural  that  he  should  keep  himself  trim  ;  it  was  by 
way  of  being  a  tribute  of  respect  to  so  right  a  figure  in 
the  pageant  of  things. 

His  face  had  the  symmetry  that  goes  with  such  per 
fect  forms.  It  was  not  very  unlike  certain  other  correct 
and  manly  faces,  of  course.  That  is  the  penalty  one  pays 
for  having  the  standard  face — that  in  degree  as  other  faces 


226  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

approach  the  standard  they  must  be  like  one's  own  ;  but 
even  this  fault  was  mitigated,  when  he  spoke,  by  a  hard 
line  of  determination  which  formed  itself  on  each  side  of 
his  mouth,  and  by  the  glance  of  resolve  shining  from  his 
eyes.  The  little  frown  habitually  lowering  his  strongly 
marked  eyebrows,  and  a  habit  of  twisting  the  end  of  his 
heavy  golden  mustache,  when  he  spoke,  as  if  quelling 
things  stronger  than  it  would  be  useful  to  say,  contributed 
to  his  effect  of  force. 

Jasper  turned  from  the  window,  through  which  Snell 
was  visible,  and  threw  two  or  three  sticks  of  wood  on  the 
andirons.  The  ranch-house,  which  was  a  Queen  Anne 
cottage  built  by  an  Eastern  architect  under  the  super 
vision  of  Deed,  but  much  influenced  in  its  construction  by 
Jasper's  wishes,  was  set  directly  under  the  range  of  moun 
tains  that  one  saw  from  Maverick,  and  the  rear  windows 
looked  out  upon  the  pine-clad  lower  slopes  of  Mount 
Blanco. 

"  Ah,  Mr.  Snell,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  to  greet  him, 
"  you're  an  early  bird  this  morning.  Take  a  seat.  Noth 
ing  like  an  early  morning  ride  to  put  life  into  a  man,  is 
there  ?  " 

"  No — no,"  assented  Mr.  Snell,  absently,  as  he  took 
the  seat,  laid  his  hat  carefully  on  the  floor,  and  fumbled 
in  his  breast-pocket  for  a  paper. 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  to  see  you  letting  up  a  bit  on  the 
daily  grind.  We  all  work  too  hard  out  here.  A  little  too 
hasty  about  chasing  up  the  almighty  cart-wheel ;  yes,  a 
trifle  too  hurried.  But  it  rolls,  doesn't  it,  if  you  don't 
scramble  after  it  with  the  rest  ?"  Jasper  put  his  hand  to 
the  back  of  his  head  and  smoothed  his  carefully  brushed 
hair.  "  It  rolls.  That's  my  experience. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  227 

"  '  It  is  not  wealth,  nor  rank,  nor  state, 
But  git  up  and  git  that  makes  men  great.' 

Our  Colorado  maxim  says  it  for  us,  and  it's  about  so,  I 
suppose.  Eh,  Mr.  Snell  ?  "  Jasper  gathered  his  dressing- 
gown  about  him,  and  seated  himself  luxuriously  in  his  fa 
vourite  chair  before  the  fire,  watching  Snell  warily  from 
beneath  his  drooping  lids,  with  every  trading  instinct  in 
him  alert  under  this  rambling  fire  of  amiability  and  world 
ly  wisdom.  Snell  was  there  to  get  an  advantage  over  him 
in  some  shape  ;  he  knew  that  as  well  as  if  he  had  carried 
a  placard  about  his  neck  to  advertise  him  of  the  fact.  He 
gathered  himself  together  with  the  secure  consciousness 
that  he  knew  whose  the  advantage  would  be  when  he 
bowed  Snell  out  of  his  door. 

"  "Well,  it  ain't  quite  a  holiday  that  Mr.  Snell's  taking 
this  morning,"  admitted  Mr.  Snell,  smacking  his  dry  lips, 
as  preliminary  to  business,  and  observing  Jasper,  whose 
eyes  were  on  his  watch-chain,  with  a  curious  look — a  look 
instantly  broadened  to  a  smile  at  some  subtle  joke  which, 
at  the  lifting  of  Jasper's  head,  he  apparently  saw  in  this. 
"  I  guess  Mr.  Snell  hasn't  taken  a  vacation  from  chasing 
up  his  own  little  mighty  dollar  yet, — not  a  very  long  one, 
anyhow, — and  he  don't  seem  extra  likely  to,  while  the 
present  scarcity  rules." 

"  Are  they  scarce,  Mr.  Snell  ?  "  asked  Jasper. 

"  Well,  don't  you  find  'em  so  ?  " 

Jasper  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Why,  to  tell  the  truth, 
no,  I  don't.  It  takes  all  my  time  and  some  lively  rustling 
to  keep  them  plenty,  of  course.  But  I  don't  mind  telling 
you,  Mr.  Snell,  that  I  have  a  pretty  good  thing  here — or 
my  father  and  I  have.  With  two  or  three  open  winters, 
like  the  last  two  we've  had,  we  sha'n't  be  poor  men.  The 


228  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

increase  is  enormous,  you  know,  if  you  don't  lose  all  your 
cattle  in  the  winter  storms,  and  prices  have  been  fairly 
good  lately.  I  don't  believe  in  the  policy  of  running 
down  your  business,  and  playing  poor  all  the  time.  I'm 
not  poor'  myself,  and  I  don't  know  that  I  care  who 
knows  it." 

"  Why,  that's  good !  That's  good  ! "  nodded  Snell,  and 
he  let  the  gloating  smile  that  had  been  working  about 
the  corners  of  his  mouth  go  now,  in  sheer  incapacity  to 
contain  his  triumph  longer.  He  longed  to  play  his  vic 
tim  further,  but  he  had  to  say  it.  "  That's  the  kind  of 
news  that  warms  the  cockles  of  an  owner's  heart,  ain't  it  ? 
Mr.  Snell  don't  mind  owning  up,  if  you  press  him,  that 
it  warms  his.  He's  been  buying  some  cattle  himself 
lately." 

"  Indeed,  Mr.  Snell ! "  said  Jasper  politely.   "  Whose  ?" 

"Yours,"  returned  Snell.  He  locked  his  withered 
hands  within  each  other,  and  leaned  forward,  resting  his 
arms  on  his  knees,  and  fixing  his  eyes  on  Jasper. 

Jasper  straightened  out  of  his  lounging  attitude  in 
voluntarily.  His  face  paled.  He  found  his  smile  and 
cigarette  instantly,  and  rose  to  pick  out  an  allumette  on 
the  mantel,  with  a  low  laugh  of  self-contempt,  which 
Snell  took  for  derision  of  his  statement. 

"  You  don't  believe  it,"  said  Snell  to  his  back,  with  a 
gurgling  note  of  contentment  in  his  voice.  "  Well,  I 
don't  know  as  I  expected  you  to,"  he  drawled.  "  Mr. 
Snell  said  to  himself,  when  he  started  out  to  pay  this 
little  morning  call,  that  some  of  his  remarks  might  re 
quire  substantiation — not  necessarily  for  publication,  but 
as  a  guarantee  of  gpod  faith,  as  the  '  Lone  Creek  Eustler ' 
says  in  its  '  Notices  to  Correspondents.'  Well,  Mr.  Deed, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  229 

I  dare  say  I  can  substantiate.  Might  cast  your  eye  over 
that,"  he  said,  coiling  his  tongue  into  his  cheek  to  keep 
himself  in  subjection;  "and  that,"  he  added,  laying  a 
second  paper  on  the  mantel,  and  still  contriving  to  sub 
due  an  importunate  smile. 

Jasper  stooped  to  the  fire  on  the  hearth  and  kindled 
his  allumette  deliberately  before  rejoining.  He  was  flushed 
as  he  rose — perhaps  with  stooping — but  he  turned  and 
faced  Snell  without  haste  or  heat. 

"  Who's  your  employer  in  this  game,  Snell  ? "  He 
rounded  his  lips  and  shaped  a  ring  with  the  smoke, 
watching  it  climb  to  the  ceiling  with  affectionate  solici 
tude.  "  Who  are  you  acting  for  ?  who's  your  principal  ? 
which  of  my  well-wishers  put  you  up  to  this  scheme  ? " 
he  repeated,  as  Snell  did  not  answer.  He  looked  down 
into  Suell's  bemused  face,  as  he  thrust  his  hands  into  the 
pockets  of  his  dressing-gown,  and  puffed  at  his  cigarette. 
"  I  swear,  Snell,  I  gave  you  credit  for  more  penetration 
than  to  waste  your  time  for  any  one  on  a  scheme  that 
takes  me  for  an  unfledged  tenderfoot.  Do  you  think  I'm 
here  for  my  health  ?  " 

Snell  had  recovered  himself,  and  said,  with  patient 
good  humor :  "  No,  Mr.  Deed ;  I  never  thought  that ; 
your  worst  enemy  wouldn't  accuse  you  of  that.  There's 
good  reading  in  them  papers,"  he  added,  with  the  effect 
of  an  afterthought. 

"  Entertain  yourself  with  it,  then,"  said  Jasper,  taking 
them  from  where  they  lay  on  the  mantel,  and  tossing 
them  to  him.  Snell  caught  them  dexterously,  without 
relaxing  the  smile  which  he  no  longer  took  pains  to 
conceal,  and  which  spread  beamingly  now  to  all  his 
features.  "I'm  not  in  want  of  reading-matter  here," 


230  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

continued  Jasper ;  "  and  if  you've  nothing  more  to  say, 
Mr.  Snell— " 

"  Oh,  I've  got  plenty  more  to  say,  if  that's  all,"  re 
sponded  Snell,  imperturbably ;  "  and  you'd  like  this  read 
ing.  Hm-hm — '  This  indenture — hm — this  day — hm — 
party  of  the  first  part,  and  Abraham  Snell,  party  of  the 
second  part,  witnesseth  : ' — would  you  like  to  know  what 
it  witnesseth  ?  "  he  inquired,  opening  wide  the  document 
he  had  been  pretending  to  take  stealthy  peeps  at  while  he 
read.  He  looked  up  at  Jasper  cunningly. 

Jasper  scowled  back  darkly  at  him.  "  Oh,  drop  that 
leer,  Snell !  What  are  you  driving  at?" 

"  Why,  I've  got  a  deed  here  of  the  '  Triangle  Outfit ' — 
whole  concern,  you  know,"  he  said,  looking  up  into  Jas 
per's  paling  face  blandly;  "house,  land,  fences,  water 
privileges,  run  of  the  range,  and  one  of  the  largest  and 
finest  bunches  of  cattle  in  the  State ;  increasing  enor 
mously,  I  believe  you  said." 

"  A  deed  of  my  range — of  my  cattle  ! "  repeated  Jas 
per. 

"  Well,"  drawled  Snell,  with  his  habitual  deprecating 
pull  at  his  puckered  lips,  "  not  too  all-firedly,  teetotally 
yours.  Some  of  it  your  father's,  ain't  it? — say  about 
two  thirds.  /  guess  it's  a  good  deed.  Ought  to  be — 
deed  from  a  Deed,  you  know."  He  leered  up  into  Jas 
per's  miserable  face,  with  a  smile  of  enjoyment. 

"  From  my  father !    Stuff ! " 

"  Do  you  know  his  writing? "  Snell  began  to  open  out 
the  paper.  Jasper  snatched  it  from  him.  At  sight  of 
the  signature  he  burst  out  in  a  great  imprecation.  He 
turned  livid,  and  Snell  got  hastily  on  his  feet,  fearing 
that  he  would  fall.  But  he  left  the  fireplace  quickly,  and 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  231 

going  over  to  the  window  read  the  whole  document  slowly 
through. 

"  What  devil's  cunning  did  you  use  with  my  father  to 
get  him  to  sign  this  ?  "  he  asked,  turning  on  Snell,  as  he 
finished. 

"  Not  any,"  responded  Suell,  cheerily.  "  I  guess  you 
used  that  for  me,  Mr.  Deed,  if  all  your  father  said  was 
true.  I'd  have  worked  tooth  and  nail  for  a  year  to  'a'  got 
that  deed  signed,  just  as  it  is  there,  I  don't  mind  telling 
you,  Mr.  Deed,  and  been  glad  of  the  chance.  But  your 
father  saved  me  the  trouble.  He  came  and  offered  me 
the  bargain,  he  urged  it  on  me,  he  crammed  it  down  my 
throat ;  and  after  beating  him  down  a  trifle,  just  for  self- 
respect,  you  know,  I  yielded  politely.  He  was  rather  in  a 
hurry,  and  I  didn't  want  to  bother  him  with  a  refusal — 
not  at  that  price,"  he  qualified,  stroking  his  chin.  "  Eanges 
like  this  ain't  going  at  $25,000 — well,  not  every  day." 
He  glanced  at  Jasper,  and  his  eye  dropped  irresistibly  in 
a  wink.  "  'Tain't  no  bad  bargain,"  he  went  on,  with  a 
lapse  into  the  cruder  forms  of  his  speech.  "  I  don't  mind 
owning  up  to  that,  now  it's  signed  and  sealed,  and  the 
outfit's  mine."  Snell  did  not  miss  the  wince  and  the 
clench  of  the  teeth  with  which  Jasper  received  this. 
"  But  it  wasn't  the  bargain  I  was  after — not  entirely." 
Jasper  stared  at  him.  "  I  suppose  you've  forgotten  that 
little  transaction  of  ours  a  year  ago  come  next  spring, 
Mr.  Deed  ?  Yes ;  I  thought  you  would  have.  Well,  you 
see  I  ain't.  That's  the  difference.  Oh,  Mr.  Snell's  got  a 
memory  for  kind  deeds,  '  Kind  deeds  can  never,  never 
die,'  the  old  song  says.  We  used  to  sing  it  in  our  Sunday- 
school  back  in  the  New  Hampshire  days.  Don't  know  that 
sacred  toon,  perhaps  ?  But  it's  a  good  toon,  all  the  same 


232  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

— a  good,  old-fashioned  truth-telling  toon.  They  can't 
die — kind  deeds ;  and  if  they  could,  I  wouldn't  let  'em. 
But  I  ain't  had  no  trouble  keeping  this  one  alive ;  it's  got 
up  with  me  every  morning,  and  made  my  breakfast  happy 
for  me ;  and  it's  gone  to  bed  with  me  every  night,  and 
helped  me  to  put  in  a  good  night's  rest.  I  ain't  forgot, 
Mr.  J.  Deed,  if  you  have,"  he  said,  rising,  and  nodding 
his  head  bitterly  toward  Jasper ;  "  and  I've  paid  out  a  tidy 
sum  for  this  here  little  dokyment " — snatching  it  from 
Jasper's  loose  clasp,  and  shaking  it  in  his  bony  claws — 
"  just  to  get  it  to  help  say  so  for  me.  1  hope  the  language 
is  plain,  Mr.  Deed." 

Jasper  kept  his  hands  from  Snell's  collar  with  diffi 
culty.  "  Quite,  Mr.  Snell,"  he  said,  with  his  usual  cool 
ness.  "  You've  paid  $25,000  for  a  piece  of  paper  that 
is  worth,  at  the  outside,  twenty-five  cents.  That  makes 
the  expense  of  registering  your  disapproval  of  some 
thing  I've  done,  or  left  undone — I  really  don't  recall 
the  particular  villainy  you  allude  to — twenty-four  thou 
sand  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  dollars  and  seventy- 
five  cents.  It's  not  a  bad  bargain,  as  Mr.  Snell's  bar 
gains  go." 

"  What ! "  screamed  Snell. 

"  I  say  your  deed,  as  you  call  it,  isn't  worth  the  paper 
it's  written  on." 

"  Oh,  it  ain't,  ain't  it?"  sneered  Snell,  comfortably. 

"  No.  My  father  had  no  more  right  to  make  that  sale 
than  you  would  have  had." 

Snelled  laughed  cheerfully.  "  Think  you're  the  only 
man  who  ain't  here  as  a  sanitary  measure,  do  you  ?  I 
took  a  lawyer's  advice  before  I  closed  with  that  poor  father 
of  yours  that  ain^t  got  no  rights.  Pm  not  here  for  my 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  233 

health — not  altogether.  When  will  you  be  ready  to  give 
me  possession  ?  " 

"  Never,"  returned  Jasper,  closing  his  lips. 

"  Oh,  come  !  I'm  willing  to  accommodate,  but  the 
date's  too  late.  Make  it  a  day  or  two  earlier — say  to 
morrow."  He  flirted  the  deed  carelessly  about  in  his 
hand. 

"  I'll  tell  you  something  I  won't  postpone,"  said  Jas 
per,  his  fingers  working  by  his  side. 

"  Yes  ?  "  inquired  Snell,  with  the  irritating  rising  in 
flection. 

"And  that's  putting  you  out  of  the  house\"  Jasper 
began  to  roll  up  his  sleeve. 

"  Inhospitable,  ain't  you  ?  "  said  Snell,  taking  up  his 
hat  nonchalantly.  "  That  ain't  the  way  I'll  treat  you 
when  I'm  master  here.  Judge  I'd  better  bring  the  sheriff 
with  me  when  I  come  to  take  possession  to-morrow,"  he 
said  tentatively  at  the  door. 

Jasper  glared  at  him.  Snell  shut  the  door  hastily. 
When  he  had  gone,  Jasper  ran  to  his  room,  cast  off  his 
dressing-gown,  and  drew  on  his  riding-boots.  Vixen  was 
ready  for  him  when  he  came  down-stairs,  and  he  flung 
himself  upon  her.  He  dug  his  spurs  into  her.  Snell  was 
making  his  way  back  to  Maverick  by  another  road. 


XVI. 

JASPER  pushed  Vixen  across  the  five  miles  of  level 
plain  lying  between  the  ranch  and  the  mountains  on  the 
other  side  of  the  valley,  with  quirt  and  spur.  It  was  an 


234  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

incomparable  morning,  but  nothing  in  his  mood  answered 
to  it.  The  stirring,  potent,  heady  morning  air  swam 
richly  through  his  blood,  awakening  him  to  a  hotter  anger 
and  a  deeper  resolve.  He  drank  its  strength  as  he  rode  on. 
It  made  him  strong  for  what  he  had  to  do.  He  set  his 
teeth,  and  spurred  forward,  hammering  his  horse's  flanks. 
The  noises  of  the  day's  work  were  only  beginning  in  the 
ranch-houses  he  passed  on  the  road.  The  spacious,  deep- 
lunged,  awful  quiet  that  settles  at  night  over  the  big  hills 
and  the  stupendous  prairie  reaches  of  the  West  had  not 
lifted,  and  the  mountains,  black  and  still  in  the  motion 
less  pines  at  their  feet,  and  white  and  still  about  their 
snowy  heads,  looked  down  on  the  silence  gravely. 

Jasper  was  not  thinking  of  mountains.  His  imagina 
tion,  active  enough  within  its  own  range  of  themes,  was 
busy  with  a  man  who,  up  in  the  hills  before  him,  would 
be  just  rising.  The  hills  were  not  near  enough.  He 
cried  upon  the  horse  with  an  oath,  as  if  Vixen  could  re 
duce  the  distance  visibly  at  the  leap  she  gave  under  a  cut 
from  his  quirt. 

At  the  "  Snow  Find  "  shaft  a  workman  was  busy  low 
ering  the  bucket.  Jasper  tethered  his  horse  at  the  cabin 
door  and  strode  over  to  him.  "  Pull  up  that  bucket,  will 
you  ?  I  want  to  see  my  brother." 

Mike  Dougherty  stared  at  him,  and  went  on  lowering. 
"  Pull  it  up,  do  you  hear  ?  "  said  Jasper,  laying  his  hand 
roughly  on  the  man's  shoulder. 

"  Yis,  I  hear,"  returned  the  man.  With  his  arm  he 
followed  the  revolving  crank  stolidly.  The  rope  unwound. 

"  You'll  mind,  if  you  know  what's  good  for  yourself." 

"  Yis,  I'll  moind  me  owners.  I  takes  me  orders  from 
Misther  Cutter  and  Misther  Dade,  d'yez  moind  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  235 

"  I  am  Mr.  Deed— Mr.  Deed's  brother." 

Mike  shot  a  look  at  him  as  he  stooped  to  his  work. 
He  may  have  found  warrant  for  the  statement  in  the  re 
semblance  Jasper  bore  to  Philip.  "An'  how  would  I 
know  that?"  he  said,  reversing  the  crank,  and  fetching 
up  the  bucket,  hand  over  hand,  with  the  same  delibera 
tion.  Jasper  cursed  him  silently.  "  There  yez  are. 
Yez'll  find  Misther  Dade  in  the  big  drift  to  yer  right 
at  the  bottom."  Jasper  got  into  the  bucket,  and 
Dougherty  lowered  away.  "  The  second  to  the  right, 
d'  yez  moind  ?  " 

Jasper  had  thought  out  his  meeting  with  Philip  as  he 
rode.  He  had  decided,  if  he  did  not  find  him  at  his 
cabin,  to  go  down  into  the  mine  without  asking  for  him. 
He  preferred  not  to  give  him  the  opportunity  of  refusing 
to  see  him. 

He  dropped  past  a  stretch  of  pale-green  earth  out  of 
the  light.  After  the  mellow  stratum  of  brown  he  was  in 
the  dark,  and  all  colours  were  alike.  The  firmament 
shrank  above  his  head  to  a  narrowing  circle,  the  size  of  a 
man's  palm.  When  he  looked  over  the  sides  of  his  swing 
ing,  sinking  bucket,  the  darkness  deepened  thickly  into 
the  abyss.  He  told  himself  that  he  was  a  fool  to  so  put 
himself  in  Philip's  power.  But  he  could  not  stop  now, 
and  at  the  moment  a  pinhead  of  yellow  flame  danced  in 
the  depths,  and  he  shouted  at  it. 

The  man  behind  it  caught  the  bucket  as  it  settled  on 
the  floor  of  the  mine,  lifting,  his  candle  to  peer  into  the 
visitor's  face.  All  the  morning  shift  was  in  the  mine,  and 
both  the  superintendents.  Any  one  who  came  now  was  a 
stranger,  and,  in  a  productive  mine,  a  stranger  is  likely  to 
be  held  an  enemy  until  he  proves  himself  a  friend. 


236  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Well  ? "  interrogated  the  figure  in  shadow  behind 
the  candle. 

"  Is  Mr.  Deed  here  ?  "  asked  Jasper,  stepping  out. 

"  Yes ;  but  he  don't  allow  no  one  in  this  here  mine," 
returned  Henry  Wilson,  formerly  of  Missouri. 

"He'll  allow  me.  I'm  his  brother.  I  settled  that  at 
the  top."  As  the  man  still  scrutinized  him,  without  of 
fering  to  move,  he  said,  "  You  don't  think  I  lowered  my 
self  down  in  the  bucket,  do  you  ?  " 

"  /don't  know  what  you  did,"  growled  the  figure,  which 
now  showed  a  face,  as  the  candle  was  lowered  to  the  level 
of  the  head. 

"  Well,  I  do,  then.  I  satisfied  the  man  on  duty  at  the 
top  before  getting  down.  You  can  lay  odds  on  that." 

"  Yes,"  assented  the  man.  The  candle  showed  a, smile 
in  the  recesses  of  his  tawny  beard.  "  I  guess  you  wouldn't 
be  let  by  Mike  very  slick  without  you  halted  and  gave  the 
countersign.  Who  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  I  sha'n't  say  it  again.     Come !     Get  a  move  on  ! " 

The  man  surveyed  him  again  surlily,  and,  turning  sud 
denly  away  with  his  candle,  left  him  in  darkness.  Jasper 
lighted  a  cigar,  and  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bucket. 
The  man's  stumping  step  died  away  in  the  lateral  gallery 
into  which  he  had  turned. 

Two  minutes  passed  without  a  sound.  The  air  of  the 
mine  laid  a  clammy  hand  on  him.  He  puffed  vigorously 
at  his  cigar.  The  silence  in  the  black  space  not  lighted 
by  the  fitful  glow  of  his  cigar  was  like  a  thing  in  the  dark 
ness.  Then  he  heard  a  quick  step  coming  along  the  same 
gallery,  a  candle  wavered  into  sight  down  the  long  passage 
into  which  he  sat  looking,  and  Philip  stood  above  him. 
They  gazed  into  each  other's  eyes. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  237 

"You!"  cried  Philip. 

Jasper  lifted  his  eyes  lazily  to  the  candle  Philip  held 
aloft,  and  smiled.  "  Yes,"  he  said.  He  bit  at  the  end  of 
his  cigar.  "  I  want  father's  address." 

"  I  can't  give  it  to  you." 

"  You  mean  you  won't." 

"  I  said  '  can't,'  "  returned  Philip,  thrusting  the  steel 
point  of  his  candle-holder  into  a  soft  space  in  the  wall, 
and  advancing  towards  his  brother  with  bent  brows.  "  I 
don't  know  where  my  father  is ;  and  let  me  tell  you  that 
you  will  do  well  to  measure  your  words."  He  looked 
steadily  into  his  eyes  across  the  candle-glare.  "  This  in 
terview  is  not  of  my  seeking." 

"  Huh ! "  uttered  Jasper,  meditatively.  "  Your  man 
ners  have  rather  gone  off  since  I  met  you  last.  The  life 
of  a  mining  camp  seems  to  have  been — relaxing." 

Philip  bit  his  lip.  "  You  should  not  be  the  first  to  say 
so,"  he  said. 

Jasper  laughed.  "You  haven't  looked  me  up  with 
your  report  of  my  mine,"  he  said,  with  impudent  percep 
tion  of  Philip's  meaning.  "  No,  I  understand ;  it  wasn't 
ready,"  he  continued,  lifting  his  hand  deprecatingly  at 
Philip's  motion  to  reply.  "  I  quite  understand  the  delay : 
there  was  something  else  that  wasn't  ready.  You  weren't 
ready."  A  dangerous  light  kindled  in  Philip's  eyes.  "A 
man  who  has  done  a  sneaking  thing  behind  another  man's 
back  usually  isn't  ready,  I've  noticed,  to  face  the  man  he's 
injured." 

Philip's  hands  twitched  at  his  side.  "  Ingrate ! "  he 
cried.  "  Keep  those  words  to  ticket  yourself  with  !  " 

Jasper  looked  at  him  quietly  from  between  his  half- 
closed  lids.  "  I'm  talking  of  you"  he  said.  "  Bluff  is  a 


238  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

good  dog — for  tricks ;  but  I'm  dealing  with  facts  ;  and  I 
say  that  to  rig  a  game  on  me  with  father  in  my  absence 
was  a  dirty  act.  You  can  turn  it  back  or  front,  or  upside 
down,"  he  went  on  with  mounting  anger,  "  but  you  can't 
get  around  that.  It  was  a  dirty  act,  and  calling  me  names 
won't  whitewash  it."  He  came  close  to  Philip,  casting  the 
words  in  his  teeth. 

The  creak  of  an  ore-car  on  a  distant  track  cut  upon 
the  silence  that  fell  for  the  instant  while  Philip  searched 
for  words.  The  preposterous  reversal  of  their  positions 
dizzied  him.  For  a  second  everything  went  round  in  a 
whirl,  in  the  midst  of  which  Jasper's  adroit  shifting  of 
the  question  between  them  seemed  to  take  on  a  demoniac 
physical  body,  and  to  go  capering  through  the  candle- 
flame,  gibing  at  him.  The  right  which  he  felt  at  the  cen 
tre  of  Jasper's  accusation  quelled  him,  and  beat  back  one 
after  another  the  answering  words  thronging  to  his  lips. 
He  clenched  his  fist  and  dropped  it  at  his  side.  Every 
thing  in  him  called  upon  him  to  choke  back  the  falsehood 
in  his  throat  as  it  touched  him  ;  but  as  his  words  touched 
his  father,  he  owned  sickly  to  himself  their  truth.  The 
thought  dashed  him,  and  Jasper  took  the  word  before  he 
could  choose  between  one  of  the  half-hearted  answers  that 
lay  upon  his  tongue. 

"  You  thought  I  wouldn't  see  through  this  thing, — 
you  and  father, — did  you  ?  You  must  have  taken  me  for 
a  bat.  Why,  you'd  see  through  it  yourself — yes,  even  you, 
my  helpless,  pottering  brother,  who  don't  know  as  much 
of  business  in  a  year  as  I  could  guess  before  breakfast  any 
morning.  Yes ;  you  who  never  turned  an  honest  dollar  in 
all  your  life,  and  who  have  managed  to  lose  a  pretty  num 
ber,  even  you  would  see  through  it.  The  thing's  childish, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  239 

I  tell  you — hiring  Snell  to  make  a  show  of  buying  the 
range,  and  fixing  things  to  take  it  over  on  your  own  ac 
count  and  father's  as  soon  as  you've  quieted  me.  There 
were  just  two  leaks  in  that  chivalric  scheme,  let  me  tell 
you  :  first,  the  idea  that  I  wouldn't  see  the  point  of  all  this 
roundabout  trick  for  doing  me  out  of  my  range  ;  and  sec 
ond,  that  I  would  be  quieted.  I  do  see  the  point,  and  I 
won't  be  quieted.  There's  going  to  be  a  row  about  this 
thing  before  we're  done  with  it,  let  me  tell  you.  I  should 
n't  wonder  if  you  heard  the  echo  of  it  as  far  as  the  '  Snow 
Find,' "  he  sneered.  "  I'm  just  the  sort  of  man  to  sit 
down  and  whistle  at  my  fate,  I  am  !  Huh  ! "  he  grunted, 
for  lack  of  all  other  expressions  of  his  scorn,  and  turned 
away. 

"  Do  you  find  yourself  safe  in  always  judging  other 
men  by  yourself  ?  "  asked  Philip  after  a  pause. 

Jasper  stumbled,  and  Philip  caught  up  his  halting 
words.  "  You  think  you  know  me.  You  say  I'm  this  and 
that.  Answer  me !  Am  I  the  man  to  meet  your  low- 
downness  with  something  lower?  Have  I  ever  played  the 
blackguard  towards  you  ?  You  need  an  accusation,  and  it 
ought  to  be  a  first-class  one,  since  it  has  to  shelter  you, 
and  stand  for  answer  to  an  act  you  know  of.  But  it  should 
be  plausible,  and  you  might  begin  by  believing  it  yourself. 
Good  God !  Do  I  look  like  a  fellow  who  could  stoop  to 
your  notions  of  what  a  man  may  let  himself  do  ?  Was  I 
ever  a  sneak  ?  " 

Jasper  clenched  his  hands.  "  Yes,"  he  cried  hoarsely 
— "  yes.  When  were  you  ever  anything  else  ?  Your  life 
has  been  one  long  slinking  out  of  every  sort  of  duty,  re 
sponsibility,  and  hard  work.  Your  father  has  fed  you 
since  you  were  a  man;  he  has  kept  you  in  amusement, 
1G 


240  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

and  helped  you  in  every  fool  scheme  for  dodging  dis 
agreeable  things  that  your  ingenuity  could  invent. 
You've  gone  on  horseback  from  the  first,  young  man. 
Do  you  think  I  haven't  seen  it?  Do  you  suppose  I 
haven't  watched  you  while  I  was  putting  my  back  into 
my  own  work,  and  sweating  to  pull  up  this  ranch  you 
talk  about  ?  "  Philip  had  not  mentioned  it.  "  Sneak, 
do  you  say?  Why,  if  you  were  mousing  about  for  a  type 
of  all  the  sneakingest  things  a  man  can  do,  you  wouldn't 
have  to  go  far.  Fancy  your  demand  that  I  should  give 
up  a  share  in  this  range  to  you,  after  what  I've  done  for 
it  ?  You  always  had  an  eye  for  a  soft  snap ;  but  I  swear 
you  never  had  the  courage  before  to  put  in  a  claim  for 
such  a  soft  snap  as  that." 

"  Oh,"  cried  Philip,  "  you  should  add  that !  Don't 
leave  your  hellish  ingratitude  half  baked  !  Don't  let  me 
go  free  of  your  crime  !  It  is  I  who  have  dealt  my  father 
this  coward's  blow,  then  ?  It's  my  act  that's  tortured  and 
maddened  him  ?  It's  I  who've  sent  him  to  fling  away  his 
fortune  distractedly,  so  that  he  might  stab  me  back  with 
the  loss  of  my  share  in  it  ?  It's  like  you  to  be  the  inno 
cent  one,  isn't  it,  and  mighty  like  me  to  be  in  the  wrong  ? 
Was  I  ever  anything  else  ?  And  it's  I,  too, — it  must  be, 
for  if  it's  not,  it's  you,  and  that's  impossible, — who  begged 
his  brother  to  stake  out  a  claim  for  him  in  the  mountains, 
and  then  got  him  without  much  bother  (for  you  were 
always  an  easy-going  fool  about  taking  trouble  for  others, 
weren't  you,  Jasper?)  to  work  the  claim  for  him,  along 
side  his  own.  Ah,  yes,"  he  cried,  with  a  derisive  shout 
that  went  echoing  under  the  hewn  roof  above  his  head, 
and  ran  stormily  among  the  galleries,  "  it  would  be  I, 
would  it  not,  who  took  such  a  service  from  my  brother, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  241 

who  left  him  to  slave  for  a  year  for  me  in  an  ungodly 
hole  among  the  hills,  and  paid  him  at  the  end  with  a 
coward's  trick  of  fence  that  has  its  name  among  gentle 
men  ?  Yes  ;  it  would  be  I !  And  it's  you  who  have  the 
burnt  end  of  the  stick  in  all  this  ;  it's  you  who  are  basely 
wounded,  and  heaped  with  injury ;  and  it's  you  who  come 
out  of  this  thing  with  white  hands !  It's  a  fine  saying, — 
a  monstrous  fine  saying — brother  !  " 

Jasper  slashed  away  with  his  cow-puncher's  knife  at  a 
strip  of  iron  pyrites  in  the  rock  at  his  side  as  Philip 
went  on.  At  the  last  word  he  twisted  the  knife  vio 
lently,  and  brought  away  the  glistening  little  stratum 
at  which  he  had  been  quarrying.  It  dropped  to  the 
floor  of  the  mine  with  a  tiny  note  that  was  like  a  crash 
in  the  silence  which  fell  as  Philip  ceased.  Jasper  paled 
to  the  eyes. 

"  Words ! "  he  said,  in  his  throat.  "  Words !  Better 
stick  to  them.  Keep  away  from  facts !  They  hurt. 
Where  is  my  father  ?  " 

"  I  have  told  you  that  I  do  not  know,"  returned  Philip 
in  the  tone  of  enforced  patience  which  one  uses  towards  a 
guest  who  has  out-stayed  his  welcome.  He  folded  his 
arms. 

"And  I  think  I've  said  I  don't  believe  you,"  answered 
Jasper.  "  If  you  hope  to  force  me  to  a  quarrel  with  you, 
by  keeping  me  from  the  bigger  game,  let  me  tell  you  that 
you  are  badly  off  your  base.  I've  got  a  juicy  bone  to  pick 
with  you  later;  you've  given  me  matter  enough  this 
morning  for  all  the  quarrel  you'll  ever  have  any  real  need 
for,  I  fancy.  But  I  choose  my  time  for  quarrels.  This 
isn't  my  time  for  a  quarrel  with  you.  I'm  not  gunning 
for  assistant  sneaks  to-day.  I'm  looking  for  the  brains  of 


242  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

this  deviltry.  Tell  me  where  my  father  is,  and  when  I've 
made  him  disgorge,  I'll  be  ready  to  give  you  all  the  at 
tention  you  can  want." 

Philip  fixed  his  eyes  steadily  on  him  above  the 
candle.  It  began  to  gutter,  and  flared  between  the 
brothers. 

"  D you  !  "_he  said  deliberately,  between  his  teeth. 

"  Keep  your  foul  tongue  from  your  father,  or  I'll  teach 
you  courtesy ! " 

"  T-s-s-s !  "  uttered  Jasper.  "  An  interesting  person 
to  teach  courtesy  !  Tell  me,"  he  cried,  taking  a  stride 
forward,  and  in  the  baleful  light  that  suddenly  entered 
his  eyes  Philip  guessed,  as  by  a  fatal  inspiration,  what  he 
must  say — "  tell  me,"  he  repeated,  "  what  did  you  say  of 
me  to  Miss  Maurice  when  I  left  you  alone  with  her  not 
many  days  ago  ?  What  pleasant  tales  about  me  did  you 
entertain  her  with  ?  Ah,  my  knightly  brother !  You 
were  asking  if  you  were  ever  a  sneak  since  I've  known 
you.  To  abuse  me  to  a  woman  in  my  absence  with  the 
mean  hope  of  undermining  my  favour  with  her,  and 
slinking  into  my  place  !  There's  chivalry  for  you  !  The 
chivalry  of  a  confidence-man  ;  the  courtesy  of  a  back 
alley ! " 

With  a  single  movement  Philip  whipped  past  the 
candle,  and  took  him  by  the  throat.  "  You  hound  !"  he 
cried.  "  Breathe  Miss  Maurice's  name  again,  and  I'll — 
You  never  had  a  decent  thought.  You  are  as  incapable 
of  understanding  the  movements  of  a  gentleman's  mind 
as  if  you  had  sprung  from  the  gutter.  Who  taught  you 
such  thoughts  ?  Not  your  father,  you —  !  " 

"  Take  off  your  hands !  Take  your  hands  off,  I  say  ! " 
shouted  Jasper. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  243 

"  Must  I  be  a  cad  because  we  are  sons  of  one  father — 
more  shame  ?  Must  I  use  my  position  to  slander  you  to 
a  woman  because  you  would  have  done  as  much  in  my 
place?  How  should  you  guess  that  your  father  could 
wipe  out  your  share  in  that  cursed  ranch  in  the  pure 
generosity  of  his  anger  ?  It  needs  a  man  to  understand 
certain  things  ! "  Philip's  voice  was  a  sob.  "  You  think 
it  like  him  to  turn  a  penny  from  his  revenge,  do  you  ? 
You  can't  understand  his  unreckoning  love  turned  to 
unreckoning  hate.  You  can't  understand  his  ruining 
himself  to  even  things  with  you,  eh?  Cur!  Do  you 
suppose  he  knows  how  to  do  a  thing  you  could  under 
stand?" 

Jasper  cast  himself  free,  and  fell  upon  his  brother  in 
blind  rage.  They  clenched  in  silence,  and  swayed  in  each 
other's  arms. 

"  Curse  you  ! "  muttered  Jasper,  as  Philip  forced  him 
to  his  knees.  He  caught  fiercely  at  him,  and,  rising  sud 
denly,  by  sheer  strength,  ground  Philip  back  inch  by 
inch,  and,  with  an  adroit  twist,  had  all  but  thrown  him. 
But  Philip,  winning  a  fresh  grip,  cast  him  back  against 
the  wall,  where  the  candle  leaped  in  a  dying  flame.  Jas 
per's  head  struck  upon  a  point  of  rock.  He  fell  heavily 
to  the  floor.  They  had  gone  crashing  into  the  candle  to 
gether.  It  lay  upon  the  floor,  extinguished. 

In  the  darkness  Philip  stooped  in  horror,  and  thrust 
his  hand  under  his  brother's  clothing,  feeling  for  the 
beating  of  his  heart. 


214  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 


XVII. 

THE  minutes  lengthened  as  he  crouched  there  in  the 
stillness,  dazed  and  shuddering.  In  the  silence  he  heard 
the  dull,  regular  stroke  of  a  sledge  upon  a  drill  in  the 
recesses  of  the  mine.  His  eyes  seemed  bursting  in  the 
darkness  as  he  strained  them  upon  the  still  figure  beneath 
his  hands.  The  blackness  began  to  pale.  The  daylight, 
streaming  through  the  shaft,  reasserted  itself  vaguely, 
and,  with  his  eyes,  Philip  devoured  the  motionless  form. 
Its  outlines  slowly  discovered  themselves  in  the  sick  un 
certainty  of  the  yellowing  light. 

Steps  drew  near  in  one  of  the  lateral  galleries,  and  the 
gleam  of  a  candle  suddenly  floated  over  the  white  face. 
Cutter  laid  a  hand  upon  Philip's  shoulder,  and  he  looked 
up,  turning  a  drawn  visage  on  him. 

Cutter  raised  his  candle,  peering  upon  the  prostrate 
figure ;  and  as  Philip  gave  way  to  him,  bent  above  it,  and, 
after  a  moment's  study,  gave  Philip  his  candle  to  hold, 
and  put  his  ear  to  Jasper's  heart. 

"  Pshaw !  He's  all  right ! "  cried  Cutter  in  a  cheerful 
tone,  which  shook  Philip  out  of  his  labouring  nightmare. 
"  Come,  let's  have  him  in  the  bucket." 

Philip  stooped  without  a  word,  and  they  carried  him 
to  the  bucket,  and,  stepping  in,  gave  the  signal.  As 
they  rose,  with  their  freight  between  them,  Cutter 
caught  out  his  handkerchief  at  sight  of  the  wound  on 
the  head,  from  which  the  blood  still  flowed,  and  bound 
it  up. 

They  laid  him  on  the  grass  in  the  wide  sunshine  at  the 
top.  Philip  fetched  water,  and  they  dashed  it  in  his  face. 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  245 

They  loosened  his  collar,  and  plied  him  with  brandy.     He 
stirred. 

Philip,  who  had  been  bending  over  him,  sprang  up. 
"  Here,  take  this,"  he  muttered  hurriedly,  pressing  the 
flask  into  Cutter's  hands.  Mike  came  up  with  a  telegram 
which  had  come  from  Gasher's,  the  small  railway  station 
a  mile  from  the  "  Snow  Find."  Philip  tore  it  open,  and 
with  a  glance  at  it  handed  it  over  to  Cutter. 

PiSfoN,  December  22d. 

The  Ryan  outfit  have  made  a  strike  in  the  "  Little 
Cipher."  Assays  $1,200  to  the  ton.  You  are  a  rich  man. 
Come  at  once  to  protect  your  interests.  HAFFEKTON. 

"By  Jove!'1''  shouted  Cutter  as  he  read.  "Didn't  I 
tell  you  ?  "  He  rose  in  excitement.  Jasper  moaned  un 
easily. 

"  No,"  said  Philip. 

"  "Well,  I  told  you  the  other  thing.     It's  all  the  same." 

"  You  told  me  that  the  '  Pay  Ore '  was  a  great  mine 
and  that  the  '  Little  Cipher '  was  no  good,"  returned 
Philip.  His  voice  had  a  hollow  sound. 

Cutter  looked  at  him.  "  Well  ? "  explained  he,  im 
patiently.  And  after  a  pause,  "  See  here,  will  you  take 
my  advice  ?  "  he  asked,  laying  a  compelling  hand  on  Phil 
ip's  listless  arm. 

"I  don't  know,"  returned  Philip,  out  of  the  mazy 
seizure  into  which  the  despatch  seemed  to  have  plunged 
him. 

"  You  don't  want  to  see  this  fellow  when  he  comes  to, 
and  you  ought  to  be  at  Piflon  by  the  first  train  that  will 
take  you  there.  Take  his  horse  over  by  the  cabin,  and 
catch  the  11:12.  It's  only  twenty-five  minutes  past  ten 


246  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

now,  and  you  can  make  it  on  that  horse  of  his  with  hard 
riding.  I'll  send  Mike  after  you  to  fetch  back  the  horse, 
so  that  it  will  be  at  the  ranch  when  we  get  there." 

"  When  you  get  there  ?  "  repeated  Philip. 

"Yes,  yes.  Don't  make  objections,  but  start.  The 
Eyans  will  have  time  to  play  the  deuce  with  you  if  you 
don't  start  at  once.  I'll  get  Wilson  to  help  me  make  up 
a  bed  for  him  in  the  Studebaker  waggon,  and  I'll  drive 
him  over  to  the  Triangle  myself.  I'll  see  him  through. 
Don't  bother !  And  get  on  that  horse ! " 

"  Cutter,"  said  Philip,  in  a  tone  of  conviction,  "  you 
are  a  brick  ! " 

He  gave  him  his  hand  in  a  silent  pressure,  strode  over 
to  Vixen,  flung  himself  on  her  back,  and,  with  a  wave  of 
his  hand  to  Cutter,  disappeared  below  the  brow  of  the 
hill  on  which  the  "  Snow  Find  "  buildings  stood. 

Jasper  opened  his  eyes. 

Philip  saw  the  meeting  hills  within  which  Maverick 
lay  part  before  the  climbing  progress  of  his  train,  and 
then  close  in  behind  it  again,  as  they  issued  from  the  val 
ley.  The  train  writhed  upon  itself,  crossing  and  recross- 
ing  its  track,  snatching  an  advantage  where  it  could,  and 
winning  its  way  from  height  to  height  by  breathless 
climbs,  by  level  tugs  in  which  the  engine  seemed  to  fill 
its  lungs,  by  stealthy  curves,  by  assaults.  They  stood  at 
last  where  a  mountain-side  dropped  sheer  away  below  the 
rails,  and,  looking  out  from  the  dizzily  clambering  train, 
Philip  saw  beneath  a  white  world,  out  of  which  the  mel 
ancholy  firs  lifted  their  wailing  arms  in  scattered  compa 
nies.  Ouray  impended  spectrally  above  the  opposite  win 
dow  for  a  moment,  and  then  the  train  was  at  rest  upon 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  247 

the  summit,  within  the  black  hole  which  snow  closes  at 
all  seasons.  The  scene  was  the  same  to  Philip's  heated 
sight  within  the  tunnel  and  without :  the  monstrous  bulks 
of  the  interfolded  hills,  the  vision  of  a  white,  tumultuous 
wilderness,  desolately  broken  by  rocks  and  pines,  ran  upon 
his  distracted  sense  like  frost  tracery,  dissolving  unintel 
ligibly  as  it  shaped  itself. 

He  was  facing  a  new  fact,  with  a  thousand  conse 
quences,  and  watched  the  marching  panorama  as  one 
watches  a  play  in  an  unfamiliar  tongue.  He  had  known 
his  fact  only  an  hour,  but  a  year's  pain  had  gone  into  it, 
and  a  year's  idle  wrestling. 

The  mine  in  which  the  Kyan  outfit  had  struck  a  for 
tune  was  Jasper's. 

As  the  train  pulled  out  of  the  tunnel,  and  slipped 
down  the  first  stretch  of  the  descent  on  the  other  side  of 
the  mountains,  Philip  dreamed  in  rage  of  the  day  in  which 
Jasper  should  take  over  with  a  silent  smile  the  fortune  he 
had  won  for  him.  It  was  the  twist  too  much  in  this  dev 
ilish  business,  he  cried  to  himself,  in  speechless  bitterness, 
as  he  stared  from  the  window  again.  The  train  swept  into 
a  snow-shed  or  burst  out  of  one  momently,  and  he  took 
the  white  and  glistening  sweep  of  the  wilderness  upon  his 
unseeing  eyes  in  abrupt  flashes.  In  the  snow-sheds,  where 
the  other  passengers  could  not  see,  he  beat  the  arm  of  his 
seat  in  wrath. 

He  could  bear  that  Jasper  should  give  him  no  thanks 
for  the  year  he  had  divided  between  the  two  mines ;  he 
could  bear  that  he  should  cheat  him  of  his  inheritance ; 
and  in  the  helpless  tangle  of  fate  in  which  that  act  had 
involved  his  father  and  himself,  and  even  Margaret,  he 
could  bear  to  owe  to  Jasper  the  loss  of  his  father's  trust. 


248  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

He  could  suffer  this  and  not  attempt  reprisal,  he  could 
even  feel  how  deeply,  fatally  wrong  all  reprisal  must  be ; 
but  he  could  not  heap  a  fortune  on  the  man  from  whom 
he  had  borne  all  this. 

He  frowned  on  McCormick,  as  he  threw  his  leg  over 
the  pony  he  hired  from  him  at  Bayles's  Park  for  the  ride 
over  the  Pass. 

"  Been  gittin'  bad  news  ?  "  asked  the  hotel  proprietor. 
He  had  got  the  best  of  him  in  the  bargain  for  the  pony, 
and  could  afford  to  be  sympathetic. 

"  Heard  of  the  strike  up  at  Piflon  ?  "  asked  Philip,  with 
an  idle  willingness  to  amuse  his  misery  by  what  the  man 
should  say. 

"Don't  mean  the  'Little  Cipher'?  You  ain't  got 
nahthin'  to  do'th  that,  have  you  ?  " 

"  I  leased  it  to  the  Ryan  outfit  a  couple  of  months 
ago." 

"  Why,  shake ! "  cried  the  hotel  man,  with  honest 
pleasure.  "  You  don't  tell  me !  They  tell  me  it's  a  Jose- 
phus  dandy.  Moshier  come  down  the  other  day  on  his 
way  to  Leadville, — you  know  Moshier, — and  he  said  it  was 
the  biggest  strike  they've  made  at  Piflon :  the  hull  town's 
wild  about  it."  Philip  conquered  the  envious  pang  for 
which  he  began  to  despise  himself. 

"  How  long  ago  did  Moshier  say  they  made  the 
strike  ?  "  he  asked,  to  stifle  his  thoughts. 

"  'Bout  a  week.  Have  you  jist  heard  about  it  ? " 
asked  the  man,  interestedly. 

"  Yes ;  they  weren't  in  a  hurry  to  let  me  know." 

"  No ;  nachully,"  mused  his  interlocutor.  "  Did  they 
tell  you  what  it  assayed  ?  7  heard  $1,500." 

Philip  found  a  smile.     "  The  assayists  get  a  little  rat- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  249 

tied  when  somebody  really  strikes  something,  I've  noticed. 
Trying  to  find  pay  ore  in  iron  pyrites  three  hundred  and 
sixty-four  days  in  the  year  dulls  a  man." 

"  Well,  you  take  it  easy,"  said  McCormick,  admiringly. 
He  had  spent  a  good  part  of  his  life  on  an  Illinois  farm, 
where  things  do  not  happen  so  often  as  they  do  in  Colo 
rado.  "  If  any  one  was  to  hare  asked  me  before  you  spoke 
up  about  the  '  Little  Cipher '  bein'  yours  " — Philip  winced 
— "  I  should  have  said  you  had  been  losin'  a  near  relation 
'stid  of  strikin'  it  rich  in  a  mine — somethin'  a  little  near- 
er'n  an  uncle,  and  a  little  further  than  a  father — 'bout  a 
brother,  say."  McCormick  laughed  for  enjoyment  of  his 
humour,  but  he  changed  the  subject  at  Philip's  scowl. 
"  Say,  what  become  of  the  pretty  young  lady  and  her 
father  that  you  come  through  with  a  while  ago,  after  the 
big  storm  ?  "  And  at  Philip's  answer,  "  That's  good,"  he 
said  :  "  Glad  to  hear  it.  She  was  lookin'  shaky.  I  was  a 
little  mite  afraid  she  wouldn't  pull  through.  It  was  a 
close  call  you  had  up  round  the  Fifth  Cascade,  there.  We 
ain't  had  such  a  storm  since.  Well,  better  luck  this  time  ! 
We  can't  afford  to  lose  you,  you  know.  Come  in  and 
have  something  before  you  start,"  he  urged,  in  the  over 
flow  of  his  hospitality. 

Philip  said  it  was  too  cold  to  get  off  his  horse  again, 
and  offered  him  a  nip  from  his  flask,  if  he  must  pledge 
him.  They  drank  together,  McCormick  praising  the  qual 
ity  of  Philip's  whiskey.  "  One  more  ?  Well,  I  don't  mind. 
Here's  to  the  success  of  the  '  Little  Cipher  '  and  its  owner." 

"  No,"  said  Philip.  He  laid  a  hand  on  McCormick's 
uplifted  arm.  "  There  are  better  toasts  than  that,  McCor 
mick.  Drink  to  the  poor  devils  who  haven't  struck  it 
rich." 


250  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  all  right,"  returned  McCormick,  surprised.  "  To 
the  poor  devils  who  haven't  struck  it  rich,  then.  That 
takes  in  me,"  he  added,  as  he  smacked  his  lips. 

Philip  rode  away  and  over  the  Pass  with  set  teeth. 
Jasper  would  be  even  richer  than  he  had  fancied — 
brutally  rich.  It  was  the  chance  of  mining :  Jasper  had 
won,  and  he  had  lost,  and  it  was  the  kind  of  chance  for 
which  he  could  see  himself  being  almost  glad,  under  cer 
tain  conditions;  he  could  not  imagine  himself  grudging  a 
brother  a  fortune,  if  that  were  all.  Very  likely  Jasper 
could  do  more  with  a  fortune  than  he  could ;  he  had 
never  learned  how  to  use  money,  or  even  how  to  keep  it ; 
and  at  least  there  would  be  something  to  say  for  the  wis 
dom  of  the  fate  which  should  pick  out  Jasper  rather  than 
him  for  her  money  favours.  But  after  all  that  had  passed, 
to  choose  him  as  the  instrument  of  her  bounty  was  an 
odious  freak.  Contrived  in  this  way,  he  did  grudge  the 
fortune  to  his  brother,  and  grudged  it  to  him  savagely. 
He  felt  like  howling  in  his  rage  to  the  canon  walls,  as  he 
thought  that  it  was  for  this  he  had  spent  that  cursed 
year  at  Pinon.  He  thought  of  their  fight  in  the  mine. 
He  thought  of  what  he  had  said  to  Jasper,  and  now  took 
none  of  it  back,  as  he  had  begun  to  take  it  back  when 
he  stooped  over  him  in  the  awful  fear  of  what  he  had 
done. 

There  was  no  snow  in  front  of  the  cave  near  the  Fifth 
Cascade  when  he  reached  it,  though  a  heavy  fall  lay  upon 
the  hills  towards  which  his  face  was  set.  The  thought  of 
Dorothy  and  of  the  days  they  had  spent  in  the  cave — days 
in  which  the  friendly  meeting  of  a  common  danger  and 
the  natural,  candid,  almost  happy  conditions  of  their 
situation  had  drawn  them  together — taught  him  a  new 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  251 

pang.  His  heart  laboured  thickly  with  the  sudden  pain 
of  the  thought  that  she  was  lost  to  him.  If  he  could  still 
hope  to  restore  himself  to  his  place  in  her  thought, — 
when  he  recalled  how  he  had  lost  it  through  a  sentiment 
of  delicacy  about  Jasper,  he  loathed  himself, — what  sort 
of  man  was  he  now  to  propose  marriage  to  any  woman  ? 

lie  said  to  himself,  with  a  smile  of  irony,  that  he  was 
in  just  the  condition  to  tempt  to  marriage  a  woman  whom 
he  had  given  reason  to  distrust  and  dislike  him  ;  and 
especially  he  was  in  a  state  which  commends  itself,  every 
where,  to  the  careful  fathers  of  lovely  girls,  and  would  be 
certain  to  commend  itself  to  her  money-loving  father. 

Not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  he  was  a  beggar, 
and  a  beggar,  now,  without  hope.  He  saw,  now,  how  he 
had  built  upon  the  expectation  that  the  Eyan  outfit  would 
strike  it  rich  in  the  "  Pay  Ore  " ;  he  went  back  and  told 
himself  that  he  should  never  have  gone  on  seeing  so 
much  of  Miss  Maurice  if  he  had  not  made  sure  of  this  in 
his  own  musings  upon  his  future.  His  visible  resources 
during  the  time  when  he  was  seeing  Dorothy  every  day, 
and  for  a  good  part  of  every  day,  were  contained  in  a 
leather  trunk,  the  worse  for  mountain  travel  on  pack- 
animals.  But  he  had  been  rich  in  confidence.  He  smiled 
wearily  as  he  remembered  that  he  was  always  rich  in  that ; 
if  at  any  moment  of  his  life  he  could  have  realized  the 
wealth  that  he  saw  in  "  futures,"  he  would  seldom  have 
needed  to  wonder  where  he  could  borrow  money  to  lend 
good  fellows,  or  to  buy  a  useless  third  pony.  It  was  an 
instinct  with  Philip  to  want  the  third  pony,  and  an  irre 
sistible  instinct  to  buy  it  when  he  lacked  money  for  a 
new  hat.  In  moments  like  those  he  was  enduring  as  he 
rode  forward  over  the  Pass  towards  Piflon  he  recognized 


252  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

these  instincts  for  follies  at  least  as  cordially  as  his  wisest 
friend  could  have  wished.  He  even  said  to  himself  that  it 
was  cold-blooded  to  have  borrowed  that  last  money  from 
Vertner  for  the  purchase  of  Dan ;  but  he  excused  himself 
by  recalling  that  he  had  expected  the  "  Pay  Ore  "  to  do 
something  for  him  then.  And  so  had  Vertner.  Surely 
it  wasn't  to  the  "  Little  Cipher  "  that  he  had  trusted  in 
making  the  loan ! 

The  thought  was  too  bitter.  He  turned  from  it  to 
wonder  sarcastically  if  Jasper's  luck  would  hold  in  the 
search  he  knew  he  would  be  making  for  his  father  as  soon 
as  he  was  able  to  be  about  again.  It  would  be  like  the 
way  things  had  been  going  since  his  father  had  struck 
back  at  Jasper,  if  he  should  find  him,  and  revenge  him 
self  as  Jasper  would  know  how  to  revenge  himself.  Ah, 
that  was  the  mistake  !  It  was  useless  to  regret  it  now ; 
the  thing  was  done.  But  what,  of  all  that  had  happened 
since,  was  not  the  fruit  of  it  ?  It  would  have  been  a  wise 
or  a  very  hardy  man  who  had  ventured  to  foretell  what 
shape  the  sure  train  of  evil  must  take,  when  his  father 
answered  Jasper's  blow  with  another ;  but  a  child  could 
have  foreseen  the  inevitableness  of  the  pursuing  chastise 
ment — of  all  this  horrid,  fertile  coil  of  wrong  begotten  of 
wrong.  Subtle,  ingenious,  pitiless — by  what  sureness  of 
indirection,  by  what  deadly  certainty  of  straightforward 
vengeance,  was  the  law  which  his  father  had  outraged 
taking  its  satisfaction !  Was  it  only  nightmare  ?  Did 
it  not  truly  seem  that  the  wrong  which  his  father  had 
dared  try  cure  with  wrong  must  go  on  helplessly  begetting 
other  wrong,  after  its  kind,  and  in  its  own  image  ?  Philip 
felt  as  if  he  were  getting  his  Bible  mixed ;  but  Nature 
seemed  to  have  her  own  idea  of  the  eye-for-an-eye  doc- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  253 

trine  —  that  was  what  he  was  thinking.  She  didn't 
spare. 

His  thought  ricochetted,  in  the  aimless  manner  of 
thoughts,  towards  the  ever-recurring  theme  of  his  debts. 
With  his  horse's  head  turned  towards  Piflon  they  became 
a  subject  of  immediate,  of  even  pressing,  importance. 
What  was  he  to  say  to  those  fellows  ?  He  had  staved  off 
men  to  whom  he  owed  money  before ;  but  he  had  never 
made  so  many  promises  about  any  other  set  of  debts,  nor 
broken  so  many.  The  letters  he  had  received  lately  from 
Pinon  had  made  him  writhe ;  for  it  is  a  curious  truth 
that  reminders  of  debts  contracted  in  carelessness  about 
the  means  of  meeting  them  are  often  felt  to  be  more  in 
sulting  than  reminders  of  the  same  nature  conveyed  to 
conscious  innocence,  whose  check-book  is  in  its  pocket. 
Philip  hated  the  men  to  whom  he  owed  money.  They 
represented  the  difficulty  of  life.  Worse — they  stood  for 
his  weakness :  they  were  his  weakness  in  material  form. 
From  this  point  of  view  their  mere  existence  was  insulting. 

He  chose  to  hold  in  his  pony  after  passing  Laughing 
Valley  City.  There  was  snow  at  this  height,  and  he  did 
not  wish  to  press  the  animal.  Besides,  a  plan  of  getting 
into  Piflon  after  dark,  and  up  to  his  old  cabin  on  Mineral 
Hill— a  plan  of  investigating  the  find  at  the  "Little 
Cipher,"  leaving  Hafferton  in  charge,  if  he  was  still  there, 
and  getting  away  again  before  the  shopkeepers  in  the 
town  below  should  have  the  opportunity  of  representing 
disagreeable  facts  to  him — had  been  forming  itself  in  his 
mind. 

In  the  event,  Hafferton  hailed  him  from  the  sidewalk 
as  he  rode  into  the  town,  and  Philip  had  to  alight  and 
walk  along  with  him,  while  he  heard  Hafferton's  story. 


254:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

It  was  an  interesting  story ;  and  they  were  at  Hafferton's 
cabin,  and  Philip  had  consented  to  stay  the  night  with 
him,  and  allowed  his  horse  to  be  stabled  in  the  burro-shed 
behind  the  hut,  before  he  knew.  A  party  of  four  were 
playing  cards  in  the  cabin  which  Hafferton  had  shared 
with  the  editor  of  his  old  paper  since  he  had  returned  to 
Piiion  (his  leased  mine  at  Leadville  had  ceased  to  pay 
lately),  and  in  the  doubtful  light  cast  by  two  candles  set 
in  two  whiskey-bottles,  Philip  saw  at  once  that  one  of  the 
party  was  Charlie  White — red-haired  Charlie  White,  the 
newsdealer,  whose  bill  he  knew  by  heart. 

"  How  are  you,  Mordaunt?"  he  said,  giving  a  listless 
hand  to  the  editor,  who  rose  with  his  cards,  and  wrung . 
his  hand. 

"  Lucky  dog  !  "  said  Mordaunt,  in  a  hearty  half- whis 
per,  which  Philip  felt  was  intended  for  congratulation. 
He  half  withdrew  the  hand  which  Mordaunt  was  crush 
ing,  and  then  let  it  lie.  They  all  rose  from  the  table  and 
crowded  about  him,  eager  to  snatch  his  hand.  "Oh, 
come,"  cried  Philip,  as  his  bones  crunched  upon  each 
other  in  the  grasp  of  a  hairy  paw,  "  I  can't  interrupt  the 
game." 

"  Game  be  blowed ! "  replied  the  owner  of  the  paw, 
cheerily.  "  What's  the  latest  from  the  '  Little  Cipher '  ? 
That's  a  daisy  strike  of  yours,  Deed  !  " 

They  liked  the  coolness  with  which  Philip  took  his 
good  fortune.  When  they  heard  that  he  hadn't  seen  his 
mine  yet,  they  formed  themselves  into  a  committee  on  the 
spot,  to  escort  him  to  it  in  the  morning. 

"  Better  hire  the  '  Silas  E.  Phinney '  brass-band,"  said 
Philip,  sickly  laying  hold  of  the  humorous  view  of  the 
situation,  and  staying  himself  upon  it,  as  the  only  perma- 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  255 

nent  object  in  this  lurching  welter,  while  he  went  on  to 
chaff  them. 

None  of  them  knew.  But  of  course.  Had  he  not 
known  that  no  one  knew?  Yes,  yes;  oh,  no  doubt. 
But  he  had  not  fancied  them  ignorant  in  this  way.  He 
had  expected — Heaven  knew  what  he  had  expected !  Or, 
yes — he  remembered  what  he  must  have  expected.  He 
had  understood  vaguely  that  at  Piflon  they  could  not 
know  the  mine  to  be  Jasper's — how  should  they  ?  They 
had  never  heard  of  Jasper.  It  was  all  in  his  own  name : 
both  mines  had  been  known  in  Piflon  as  equally  his — 
"  Deed's  mines."  Philip  Deed's  mines.  Yes ;  he  had 
said  this  to  himself  ;  but  never  the  other  thing,  that  they 
must  think  the  "  Little  Cipher  "  his.  Was  it  too  obvious, 
he  wondered,  now?  Had  he  been  crazed  by  Jasper's 
damnable  good  fortune?  Well,  what  matter?  They 
thought  the  mine  his. 

A  black  suggestion — the  devil's — plucked  at  him  as 
he  stood  among  these  fellows,  giving  back  their  congratu 
lations  with  dazed  looks  and  half-hearted  raillery.  It 
came  upon  him,  suddenly,  fatally,  as  if  this  too  were  a 
fresh  thought.  The  thought  was  that  Jasper  knew  no 
more  than  they.  He  knew  that  he  owned  a  mine  at 
Piflon.  But  which  ? 

Philip  turned  pale,  and  tried  to  cry  the  truth  at  them. 
It  would  not  utter  itself.  Then  some  one  proposed  a 
toast  to  the  owner  of  the  "  Little  Cipher,"  and  when  at 
last  he  lifted  his  voice  to  explain  their  mistake  at  any 
cost,  it  was  drowned  in  the  uproarious  shout  of  congratu 
lation. 

But  Philip  was  determined,  now.  He  waited  until  he 
could  catch  Charlie  White  away  from  the  crowd,  and, 
17 


256  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

drawing  him  into  a  corner,  said,  "  That  bill  I  owe 
you — " 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,  man !  You  didn't  think  I  was 
anyways  worried  about  that,  did  you?"  asked  White, 
jovially. 

"  Yes.  You  haven't  left  me  at  a  loss  to  understand 
that  you  were  worried." 

"  Oh,  my  letters  !  "  cried  Charlie,  waving  them  off 
magnificently.  "You  surely  haven't  been  taking  them 
seriously !  What  ?  My  little  joking  way !  Why,  I  thought 
you  were  too  much  of  a  joker  yourself  not  to  understand 
a  bit  of  fun  like  that,  Mr.  Deed." 

"  It  isn't  my  idea  of  fun,  Mr.  White,"  retorted  Philip, 
reckless  of  consequences  with  a  man  whom  he  might  have 
to  sue  for  indulgence  the  next  minute.  "  I  can't  meet 
your  bill  in  cash  at  the  moment,"  he  went  on  haughtily ; 
"  but  if  you  will  allow  me  to  return  the  set  of  Thackeray, 
and  some  of  the  other  books  in  good  bindings, — it's 
coming  Christmas,  and  you'll  have  a  sale  for  them, — I 
can  make  a  small  payment,  on  account,  on  the  magazines 
and  other  things  I  owe  you  for." 

They  spoke  in  an  undertone ;  but  Philip  felt  that  they 
were  watched  by  the  others,  who  went  on  drinking,  leaving 
the  new-made  mining  king  to  his  royal  whim. 

"Why,  what  the — ?"  began  White;  and  Philip  saw 
that  he  had  humiliated  himself  for  nothing.  Then,  as  if 
taken  with  discretion,  White  went  on  :  "  Why,  pshaw, 
man  !  What's  the  use  of  talking !  Charlie  White  ain't 
the  last  man  to  understand  how  a  fellow  can  be  hard  up 
with  a  leased  mine  when  they've  only  just  struck  the  dust. 
I  don't  want  neither  books  nor  payment.  Not  I !  Why, 
you  must  come  down  in  the  morning,  after  you've  been 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  257 

up  to  your  mine,  and  see  what  you  want  in  our  line.  We 
won't  stand  on  the  question  of  credit.  Five  years  and  no 
questions  asked  is  my  motto  with  Mr.  Deed." 

If  Philip  could  have  drawn  a  check  for  $69.17  then 
and  there,  and  handed  it  over  to  him,  he  would  have 
answered  this  as  he  was  aware  that  it  ought  to  be  answered. 
The  consciousness  that  he  had  less  than  $15  in  cash  in  the 
world,  and  less  than  $10  in  his  trousers  pockets,  taught 
him  to  parley  with  the  situation,  as  it  had  often  taught 
him  to  parley  with  situations  less  vital.  A  wandering 
recollection  came  to  him  of  something  he  had  been 
hoping  to  be  able  to  send  Dorothy  for  Christmas — some 
thing  which  he  could  get  at  Charlie  White's,  on  credit, 
as  he  faced,  for  a  moment,  the  opposite  prospect  of  a  suit. 
White  wouldn't  want  his  books,  nor  the  small  sum  on 
account,  if  he  knew  the  truth :  he  didn't  need  to  glance 
at  the  hard  lines  under  the  smile  he  was  wearing  at  the 
moment  to  understand  this  quite  clearly.  What  he  would 
do  would  be  to  sue  him,  now  that  he  was  within  reach 
again,  and  to  bring  down  the  whole  howling  pack  of  his 
creditors  on  him.  It  would  be  an  infernal  row,  and  he 
would  be  spattered  with  a  lot  of  mud.  Why  not  postpone 
the  question  until  he  could  look  into  the  mine  quietly,  and 
take  himself  out  of  Pinon  ?  Then  they  were  welcome  to 
bay  at  his  heels,  if  they  liked  :  it  might  amuse  them,  and 
wouldn't  hurt  him.  But  to  bring  it  on  himself  while  he 
was  here — •  The  horror  of  the  temptation  came  over  him 
again,  and  to  shut  out  the  vision  of  the  man  that  it  sought 
to  make  him,  he  plunged  into,  "  Don't  rely  on  the  mine, 
White,  if  you  know  what's  good  for  yourself." 

"Why  not?"  asked  White,  sharply.  "You  haven't 
assigned  your  interest  in  it,  have  you  ?  " 


258  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

Philip  saw  what  was  in  his  mind  ;  he  was  imagining 
that  he  might  have  assigned  his  interest  to  avoid  his  cred 
itors.  He  might  better  risk  the  truth  than  that ;  if  that 
idea  got  abroad  to-night  he  might  as  well  drop  everything 
in  the  morning,  and  give  himself  up  to  his  creditors.  But 
he  knew  that  the  moment  when  he  was  likely  to  risk  the 
truth  was  past,  and  in  despair  he  said  : 

"No;  I  haven't  assigned  it." 

It  occurred  to  him  that  he  would  have  to  send  his  gift 
to  Dorothy  anonymously. 


XVIII. 

I  PLEASE  myself  by  thinking  of  Dorothy  just  at  this 
time  as  the  centre  of  all  the  young  sentiment  gathered 
about  her.  In  the  East,  where  we  know  that  things  are 
not  what  they  were,  a  young  girl  is  no  longer  likely  to  be 
called  upon  to  choose  among  three  lovers,  a  privilege 
which  ought  probably  to  be  the  inalienable  right  of  every 
nice  girl  on  both  sides  of  the  continental  divide.  But  the 
eager  army  of  adventurous  spirits  who  populate  the  West, 
crossing  the  Mississippi  at  an  age  to  which  a  nice  girl 
seems  much  the  nicest  thing  there  is,  are  apt  to  find  her 
the  rarest  product  of  the  country,  and  to  hold  her  in  pro 
portionate  esteem.  That  one  man  should  aloiie  be  in  the 
secret  of  her  niceness  would,  under  Western  conditions, 
be  a  painful  extravagance ;  and  though  the  instinct  of  the 
West  is  not  for  economy,  it  is  never,  in  this  regard,  other 
than  frugal.  By  a  fortunate  provision  of  Nature  the 
petty  contest  between  the  members  of  a  group  of  young 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  259 

ranchmen  or  mining  engineers,  or  the  galliard  lieutenants 
stationed  at  a  frontier  fort,  cannot  go  on  forever,  else  the 
nicest  girl  might  finally  lack  niceness  eiiough  to  go  around. 
She  usually  mobilizes  her  straggling  lines  of  amiability, 
and  throws  them  upon  a  single  knight,  after  a  time,  and 
if  they  hardily  resolve  to  undertake  the  Western  experi 
ment  together,  she  commonly  finds,  during  the  first  year 
or  two,  that  she  needs  all  her  niceness  to  keep  the  experi 
ment  going.  Sometimes  she  returns  to  the  East,  and 
marries,  in  the  end,  some  humdrum  New-Yorker  or  Bos- 
tonian.  In  cases  like  this  she  leaves  a  reproachful  sen 
timent  of  regard  behind  her,  which  half  a  dozen  agree 
able  young  fellows  may  share  without  enmity  until  the 
next  young  girl  comes  from  the  East  to  divide  their  good 
will.  And  she  often  takes  with  her  a  romantic  regret. 
She  sees  how  the  "West — or  at  least  these  young  Westerners 
— need  her,  or  some  one  not  too  unlike  her ;  she  pities 
their  unfriended,  unfeminized  lot ;  she  thinks  how,  if  she 
were  braver,  she  should  have  courage  to  share  it  with 
them  ;  and  after  her  humdrum  marriage  she  has  moments 
of  despising  the  weak-heartedness  which  withheld  her 
from  sharing  it  with  them.  Fifth  Avenue  is  a  long  way 
from  the  Rocky  Mountains :  through  the  mist  of  distance 
in  miles  and  in  years  she  finds  it  easy  to  imagine  herself 
suffering  the  West  for  love  of  one  Jack  or  Harry, — if  she 
had  only  loved  him  enough, — and  she  keeps  a  perfumed 
corner  of  her  memory  for  the  real  romance  that  clings 
about  the  whole  great,  rude,  unspoiled  country  beyond  the 
Mississippi — the  romance  which  seized  her  young  girl's 
fancy,  even  more  than  the  battalion  of  young  men,  and 
which  makes  the  unceasing  and  inexhaustible  interest  of 
the  West. 


260  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

Dorothy's  heart  and  her  conscience  were  sadly  oc 
cupied,  as,  with  Jack  by  her  side,  she  went  her  parish- 
visiting  way  some  days  following  the  encounter  of  the 
brothers  at  the  "  Snow  Find."  She  had  heard  nothing  of 
this  as  yet.  Her  trouble  was  an  ill-starred  instance  of  the 
imperfection  of  the  frank  and  abundant  Western  love- 
making.  Dick,  whom  she  liked  so  much,  Dick,  who  had 
been  so  generous  and  tireless  a  friend  to  her,  in  ways 
unknown  to  any  friendliness  but  the  very  kindest,  Dick, 
who  had  come  to  her  rescue  in  one  of  the  most  difficult 
hours  of  her  life,  and  had  ever  since  been  beyond  all  say 
ing  good  to  her  and  to  her  father — Dick  wanted  to  marry 
her  !  The  fact,  when  it  was  fully  explained  to  her,  almost 
caused  her  to  revolt  against  the  whole  institution  of  mar 
riage.  Why  should  Dick  want  to  marry  her  ?  Why  could 
he  not  remain  her  dear,  her  very  excellent,  her  never-to- 
be-enough  praised  or  liked,  friend?  Why  must  the  tire 
some  question  of  love  perpetually  rise  to  haunt  the  fine 
and  cheering  and  noble  friendship  which  might  bind  men 
to  women,  if  men  were  different  ? 

She  could  not  help  grieving  for  Dick — poor  Dick — but 
she  would  not  allow  herself  to  be  sorry  for  the  pleasant 
days  which  had  led  to  this.  It  had  been  very  pleasant  to 
her,  his  friendship  ;  and  if  it  was  at  an  end  (at  least  on 
the  old,  kindly,  unconscious  ground),  it  was  not  her  fault, 
but  her  great  misfortune.  She  could  not  see,  as  girls 
often  see  remorsefully,  in  such  cases,  with  no  better  rea 
son,  how  she  had  been  to  blame.  Was  she  to  have  im 
agined,  then,  that  Dick  was  in  love  with  her  ?  She  said 
to  herself  indignantly  that  no  such  discreditable  and 
vexatious  thought  about  Dick  could  ever  have  entered 
her  head.  But  as  the  full  meaning  of  Dick's  passion  for 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  261 

her  made  its  way  into  her  consciousness,  her  heart  bled 
for  him,  in  perceiving  how  just  this  frame  of  mind,  on  her 
part,  must  lend  poignancy  to  his  regret.  That  she  found 
him  impossible  and  incredible  as  a  lover  was  not  a  thing 
to  console  his  lonely  sorrow  at  Laughing  Valley  City.  It 
was  to  Laughing  Valley  that  he  had  returned  the  day 
before,  with  a  gentle  air  of  asking  forgiveness  for  having 
spoiled  their  relation,  which  went  to  her  heart. 

"  Ah,  well,"  she  said  to  herself,  as  she  caught  sight  of 
Vertner  coming  towards  her  down  a  side  street.  "  He  will 
find  some  good  girl  after  a  while  who  will  see  how  splen 
did  he  is,  as  I  do,  and  will  love  him  besides.  The  worst 
is,  we  never  can  be  friends  again  ! " 

Vertner,  as  he  joined  her  at  the  corner,  asked  if  he 
might  walk  along  with  her,  and  then  inquired  where  she 
was  going.  Dorothy  said  she  was  going  on  a  round  of 
duty-calls,  but  that  she  was  glad  to  see  him ;  she  wanted 
to  ask  him  about  his  plan  for  enlisting  her  father  in  the 
publication  of  a  church  paper.  She  spoke  anxiously,  and 
Vertner  had  his  unfailing  cheerfulness  ready  for  her. 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,"  he  said.  "It's  a  wonderful 
field.  It's  curious  some  clever  chap  hasn't  worked  it 
before."  He  was  distributing  his  happy,  indomitable  little 
smile,  as  they  walked,  to  every  one  they  met.  Dorothy, 
who  had  come  to  know  a  great  many  people  in  Maverick 
herself,  by  this  time,  was  surprised  and  amused  by  the 
extent  of  his  bowing  acquaintance.  She  said  he  seemed 
very  neighbourly,  and  Vertner  laughed.  Oh,  yes,  he 
owned ;  a  man  had  to  know  everybody.  There  was  no 
telling  what  business  he  would  be  wanting  to  go  into  one 
of  these  beautiful  Colorado  days ;  and  perhaps  from  a 
willingness  to  avoid  plumbing  the  depths  of  his  church- 


262  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

paper  scheme  with  her,  he  called  upon  her  to  admire  the 
unwearying  and  systematic  goodness  of  the  Colorado 
weather,  and  insisted  upon  the  admission  that  there  was 
no  place  in  the  world  for  a  man  to  settle  in  like  Mav 
erick.  "  I  used  to  think  Leadville  was  about  right,"  he 
said,  with  a  smile,  which  admitted  her  into  his  professional 
insincerity,  "  but  that  was  when  I  owned  more  corner  lots 
in  Leadville  than  I  do  now." 

"  No ;  but  about  the  paper — "  began  Dorothy,  again. 

And,  as  if  it  had  slipped  his  mind,  "  Oh,  yes ;  about 
the  paper  ! "  he  exclaimed — and  changed  the  subject. 

Dorothy  had  intended  to  make  her  first  call  on  Miss 
Kiteva  Snell ;  but  perceiving  that  Vertner  hoped  that  she 
would  be  obliged  to  leave  him  before  they  had  definitely 
arrived  at  the  subject  of  the  paper,  she  changed  her 
course,  determining  to  begin  with  Mrs.  Felton,  who  lived 
much  farther  out,  not  far  from  the  river  road. 

"  Why,  you  see  it's  this  way,"  said  Yertner,  when  he 
found  that  he  must  make  a  virtue  of  necessity.  "  There's 
no  diocesan  paper,  and  your  father  and  I  thought  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  to  start  one."  Dorothy  laughed  boldly  at 
Vertner's  use  of  the  word  "  diocesan  " ;  if  she  had  not  been 
much  concerned  about  her  father's  share  in  the  paper,  she 
would  have  taken  time  to  be  amused  by  the  idea  of  Vert 
ner  as  the  publisher  of  a  church  journal,  a  function  which 
he  presently  explained  that  he  was  to  assume,  if  her  father 
decided  to  go  into  the  enterprise,  and  would  accept  the 
post  of  editor. 

It  appeared  that  this  was  to  be  a  weekly — "  a  little 
weekly  for  a  cent,"  Vertner  called  it ;  it  was  really  to  be 
very  small,  but  was  to  be  sold  at  rather  less  than  a  cent,  in 
quantities,  to  the  various  congregations  of  the  diocese. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  263 

"  We'll  take  in  New  Mexico  and  Wyoming  after  a  while  ; 
but  we  thought  of  beginning  with  Colorado,"  said  Vert- 
ner,  modestly.  "  In  these  missionary  dioceses,  you  know," 
— Dorothy  could  not  help  admiring  the  glibness  with 
which  he  used  his  second-hand  knowledge  procured,  she 
felt  sure,  from  her  father, — "  they  haven't  got  around  to 
the  little  diocesan  papers  that  are  so  common  in  the  East. 
But  all  dioceses  need  them.  They  are  popular  with  the 
bishops  because  they  afford  a  channel  for  direct  communi 
cation  with  all  the  people  of  their  dioceses — appointments, 
pastoral  letters,  and  all  that,  you  know ;  they  are  popular 
with  the  priests  "  (Dorothy  wished  not  to  be  irreverent, 
but  she  was  forced  to  smile  at  Vertner's  confident  use  of 
her  father's  high-church  word)  "  because  we  print  a  special 
edition  for  each  church,  with  local  announcements ;  and 
the  people  like  them  because  they  get  them  for  nothing." 

"For  nothing?"  inquired  Dorothy,  not  understanding 
how  her  father  was  to  profit  by  such  an  arrangement. 

"  Well,  the  same  thing.  They  feel  as  if  they  got  them 
for  nothing.  Of  course  each  church  will  subscribe  as  a 
body,  but  the  papers  will  be  distributed  every  Sunday  in 
the  pews  free.  Every  church  will  subscribe.  We  sha'n't 
stick  them  very  much  for  the  paper  by  the  hundred." 

"  But  how  do  you  expect  to  make  your  fortune,  Mr. 
Vertner,  by  that  plan — and  papa's  ?  I  suppose  you  in 
tend  to  make  your  fortune  ?  "  she  answered,  with  twink 
ling  eyes. 

Vertner  smote  his  hands  together  with  delight.  He 
was  wearing  a  pair  of  sealskin  gloves,  and  the  concussion 
made  a  resounding  noise.  "  Yes,  yes,"  he  cried,  gener 
ously  enjoying  his  foible  with  her.  "  Of  course.  What 
are  we  here  for  ?  " 


264:  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  For  your  health,  Mr.  Vertner  ?  "  suggested  Dorotliy, 
roguishly,  under  her  breath. 

Vertner  smiled  with  her.  "  I'm  afraid  it  wouldn't  do 
to  trust  you  with  our  scheme  for  making  a  go  of  this 
thing,"  he  said,  looking  at  her  with  admiration.  "  You 
might  understand  it." 

"  Thanks." 

"  It's  a  good  scheme,"  he  said  fondly.  "  Do  you  think 
I  could  trust  you  ?  " 

"  To  misunderstand  it  ?  " 

"  No ;  not  to  go  and  give  it  away  to  the  big  adver 
tisers."  They  laughed  together  at  this,  and  Vertner  said 
he  thought  he  could  rely  on  her  friendliness  to  her 
father  to  keep  her  from  indiscreet  revelations,  and  ex 
plained  how  they  —  he  always  implicated  her  father, 
Dorothy  observed,  with  interest — were  going  to  charge 
for  advertising  only  in  proportion  to  the  circulation,  and 
were  going  to  charge  only  a  cent  a  line  per  thousand  of 
circulation,  at  that. 

"  But  that  is  worse  and  worse,"  cried  Dorothy.  "  I 
don't  see  but  you  are  sure  to  lose  money.  You  are  taking 
every  precaution." 

"  Um ! "  meditated  Vertner,  with  a  cheerful  smile. 
"  Strikes  you  that  way,  does  it  ?  Well,  it  does  'most  every 
one,  to  tell  the  truth.  I've  mentioned  the  idea  to  half  a 
dozen  men  in  Denver  who  do  a  good  deal  of  advertising, 
and  that's  what  they  said.  They  asked  me  if  I  couldn't 
corner  enough  annual  ruin  in  mines  without  monkeying 
with  church  newspapers,  at  a  cent  a  line,  and  prove  your 
circulation  by  monthly  affidavits?  I  had  to  do  a  little 
fright  at  that,  of  course,  as  if  that  view  of  the  case  hadn't 
occurred  to  me.  Your  intuition,  Miss  Maurice,"  he  said, 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  265 

making  her  a  flattering  bow,  "  taken  in  connection  with 
their  business  judgment,  makes  me  feel  happy  about  the 
scheme.  So  you  think  your  father  and  I  would  drop  our 
molasses- jug  if  we  went  into  the  'Church  Kalendar'  on 
that  basis?" 

"  No,  Mr.  Vertner,"  returned  Dorothy,  with  an  unper 
turbed  face,  which  Vertner  resisted  an  inclination  to  ap 
plaud  ;  "  if  you  say  there  is  a  fortune  in  it,  I  shall  get 
myself  a  new  pair  of  gloves  to-day.  I'm  sure  you  always 
know  when  you  are  going  to  make  a  fortune." 

"Ah,  that  makes  two  persons  who  believe  in  me ! "  ex-, 
claimed  Vertner.     "  The  other  is  a  man  in  Denver  who 
dropped  to  my  scheme.     He  fell  off  a  ten-story  building 
on  it.    It  was  glorious.    I  chummed  with  him  for  an  hour 
like  a  brother,  and  swore  him  to  secrecy." 

"  Oh,  please  chum  with  me  like  a  sister,  Mr.  Vertner ! " 

"  Shall  I  ?  Well,  the  man  said  it  was  too  pretty  a 
scheme  to  give  away.  I  believe  you'll  have  the  same  feel 
ing,"  he  said,  with  a  reverence  which  he  failed  in  bur 
lesquing.  "  You  see — " 

He  hesitated. 
•"Well?" 

"  Well,  we  don't  make  any  guarantees  about  the  circu 
lation.  It  may  be  small  or  it  may  be — large."  He  paused 
for  the  effect. 

"  But — "  began  Dorothy,  not  finding  herself  more  en 
lightened. 

"  Well,  we  make  them  take  out  a  yearly  contract  in 
consideration  of  the  lowness  of  the  price." 

"  But  still  I  don't  see,"  cried  Dorothy. 

"  Don't  you  ?  How  many  subscribers  do  you  think  we 
shall  have  at  the  end  of  six  months  ?  " 


26G  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  I  don't  know,"  returned  Dorothy,  laughing.  "  Five 
thousand  ?  " 

"  What !  Five  cents  a  line  !  Do  you  want  to  starve 
us  ?  The  circulation  at  the  end  of  the  first  half  year  will 
be  a  quarter  of  a  million.  How  many  churches  do  you 
suppose  there  are  in  Colorado,  Wyoming,  New  Mexico, 
Arizona,  Montana,  Dakota,  Washington,  Oregon,  Cali 
fornia,  and  Nevada  ?  "  He  rolled  off  the  portentous  list 
with  enjoyment.  Dorothy  again  replied  that  she  did  not 
know.  "Well,  neither  do  I,"  owned  Vertner;  "but  there 
must  be  a  quarter  of  a  million  regular  attendants  at  those 
churches  at  a  low  calculation.  Now  do  you  see  ?  " 

Dorothy  laughed  aloud.  "  And  are  you  going  to  make 
every  one  of  those  people  subscribe  to  the  '  Church  Kal- 
endar  '  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I'm  going  to  give  it  to  them,"  replied  Vertner.  And 
at  Dorothy's  look  of  bewilderment,  "  On  a  bona-fide  sub 
scription  plan,  of  course.  We'll  arrange  that  with  the 
rectors.  But  you  see  the  point,  perhaps  ?  " 

"  With  the  advertisers  ?  "  faltered  Dorothy. 

Vertner  nodded  happily. 

"  But  will  they— will  they  like  it  ?  "  asked  Dorothy. 

"  Well,  I  don't  believe  they  will  renew  their  contracts 
for  the  second  year,"  admitted  Vertner,  sententiously. 

Dorothy  did  not  instantly  see  her  way  through  the 
sinuosities  of  this  ingenious  plan  ;  but  she  thought  she 
was  sure  that  there  was  a  lurking  wrong  to  somebody  in 
volved  in  it.  She  reserved  this  for  her  father,  however. 
She  meant  to  ask  him  all  about  it,  and  to  beg  him,  what 
ever  the  honesty,  and  whatever  the  promise  of  the  enter 
prise,  not  to  share  in  it.  She  doubted  all  projects  of 
making  money,  prima  facie.  She  had  not  merely  a  worn- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  267 

an's  conservatism  about  finance,  she  had  the  timidity  of 
all  who  live  on  a  stated  income,  and  to  this  she  added  a 
rooted  distrust  of  her  father's  financial  capacity.  It  was 
the  only  distrust  she  allowed  herself  regarding  him,  and 
even  this  was  affectionate  :  how  should  such  a  man  be 
skilled  in  the  ways  of  trade  ? 

She  formed  a  project  of  asking  Jasper  to  advise  him 
not  to  engage  in  the  plan.  She  knew  that  her  father  re 
spected  Jasper's  judgment,  and  perhaps  he  would  suffer 
himself  to  be  persuaded  by  him  on  the  business  side,  when 
her  own  remonstrances  would  not  avail.  Jasper  and  her 
father  had  been  even  more  intimate  since  the  renewal  of 
their  acquaintance  in  Maverick  than  she  remembered 
them  in  the  old  days.  Jasper  had  once  come  and  sat  out 
the  evening  with  her  father  in  his  study,  smoking  a  pipe, 
only  looking  in  on  her  to  say  "  Good-night."  Possibly 
Jasper  would  go  into  it  with  him  ;  that  would  make  it 
safe,  for  she  was  sure  that  any  business  project  of  which 
Jasper  approved,  and  to  which  he  gave  his  mind,  must 
prosper.  But  she  was  in  a  moment  not  sure  that  she 
wished  this.  She  would  not  say  to  herself  all  that  this 
thought  implied.  She  had  begun  to  shrink  lately  from 
her  previsions  of  the  final  outcome  of  her  present  singular 
relation  to  Jasper.  She  had  said  to  herself  that  she  must 
bring  the  matter  to  an  end,  but  she  had  not  yet  found  the 
hardihood  for  that,  and  meanwhile  she  felt  herself  being 
surrounded  ;  she  had  the  sense  of  being  softened  and 
drawn  to  him  by  a  slow,  certain  process,  like  the  fatal  eat 
ing  of  the  sea  into  a  rock.  Jasper's  will  was  in  itself  a 
reason  for  anything  that  he  strongly  wished  ;  through  all 
the  strength  of  her  own  will  she  felt  this.  Sometimes  she 
felt  it  unsupportably,  and  it  was  at  such  times  that  she 


268  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

said  to  herself  that  she  must  end  it.  Alas  !  it  is  really 
only  the  man  who  can  put  an  end  to  such  a  situation.  A 
woman  can  make  her  way  out  of  it  only  by  a  violence,  an 
unwomanliness.  From  all  that  could  be  held  unwomanly 
Dorothy  shrunk  with  much  more  reluctance  than  from 
anything  that  the  situation  into  which  Jasper  had  con 
trived  to  bring  her  could  have  to  offer ;  and  she  helplessly 
let  the  affair  lapse  and  drift. 

Thinking  of  Jasper  led  her  to  speak  of  him  ;  and 
Vertner's  extraordinary  interest  in  the  subject  was  caus 
ing  her  a  vague  wonder,  when  they  met  Dr.  Ernfield, 
driving  back  to  Maverick  from  a  professional  visit  which 
he  had  been  paying  at  Loredano.  He  drew  up  to  the  side 
walk,  and  they  paused  to  speak  to  him.  Dorothy  thought 
sadly  that  he  was  looking  very  weak  and  ill  again.  Doro 
thy  had  last  seen  him  at  Beatrice's  card-party,  where  he 
was  looking  much  stronger  than  now ;  and  she  was  grieved 
by  his  appearance  of  illness.  She  begged  him  to  come  to 
see  her  ;  she  said  she  was  in  shockingly  good  health,  but 
she  would  come  down  with  any  new  and  unstudied  dis 
ease  that  he  liked,  if  he  would  not  come  without  that. 
But  she  hoped  he  would. 

Ernfield  said  he  should  be  glad  to  come  without  ex 
cuse,  if  she  would  let  him.  He  had  often  seen  Dorothy 
at  Mrs.  Vertner's  while  Margaret  was  in  Maverick,  and 
twice  since  Margaret  had  gone  he  had  been  to  the  Mau 
rices'  cottage, — once  to  see  Maurice  himself,  when  he  had 
been  suffering  from  a  bad  cold,  and  once  again  to  call 
on  them,  with  no  business  reason.  Dorothy's  cordial  free 
dom,  her  sweetness,  and  the  candid  openness  with  which 
she  lavished  herself  on  him  when  he  came,  were  not 
things  which  any  one  could  fail  to  like,  and  certainly  were 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  269 

not  things  which  a  man  in  his  position  could  be  other 
than  grateful  for.  When  he  had  last  seen  her  he  had 
scorned  himself  for  the  stealthy  pain  which  ventured  to 
show  its  head  at  the  thought  that  it  was  only  to  a  man 
out  of  the  running  that  a  woman  could  venture  to  be  as 
good  as  that,  and  he  was  willing  to  go  again  to  punish 
himself  for  the  thought  by  enjoying  her  kindness  as 
whole-heartedly  as  it  was  offered.  Surely,  in  so  far  as 
any  one  could  imply  by  words  said,  and  left  unsaid,  that 
he  was  a  robust  marcher  in  the  ranks  with  the  rest,  with 
a  brave,  rich  life  before  him,  she  implied  it,  with  her 
woman's  tact.  It  was  himself  he  must  accuse ;  and  he 
did  it  handsomely,  as  Dorothy,  with  the  yearning  painted 
on  her  face,  in  spite  of  herself,  to  do  something  for  him, 
somehow  to  give  him  a  lift,  to  cheer  and  comfort  him, 
begged  him  to  come  to  see  her. 

Vertner  asked  the  news  at  Loredano.  How  was  the 
strike  Pope  had  made  in  the  "  Nugget "  coming  on  ? 
And  had  Metuchen  driven  his  bunch  of  cattle  over  into 
Bayles's  Park  for  the  winter?  It  was  part  of  the  kindli 
ness  aud  inbred  courtesy,  which  oddly  mingled  themselves 
with  other  qualities  in  Vertner,  that  he  forbore  to  follow 
Dorothy's  suggestion  with  one  of  his  hearty  invitations  to 
"  look  in  on  a  fellow,  once  in  a  while,  won't  you  ?  "  He 
did  not  care  anything  about  Pope's  mine  or  Metuchen's 
cattle,  but  he  felt  the  obligation  to  bridge  the  gap.  Ern- 
field  did  not  want  to  be  asked  to  that  house  of  painful 
reminders,  he  knew ;  and  he  didn't  want  to  be  reminded 
that  anybody  was  taking  care  not  to  remind  him. 

Ernfield,  after  a  word  of  inquiry  about  Dorothy's 
church  work,  which  had  always  seemed  to  interest  him, 
drove  on,  turning  back  to  say  that  he  had  met  Mrs.  Vert- 


270  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

ner  coming  out  of  Mrs.  McDermott's  house,  on  the  river 
road  :  they  would  meet  her  if  they  went  on.  Fred  Kelf- 
ner,  who  occupied  his  usual  seat  beside  the  doctor,  lifted 
his  hat  to  Dorothy  as  Ernfield  whipped  up  his  horse. 

They  were  out  of  town  now,  and  walking  towards  the 
mountains  against  the  brisk  wind  which  often  blows  at 
these  altitudes.  Ouray  was  behind  them,  but  on  their 
right  the  long  serrated  rib  of  the  Sangre  de  Cristo  range 
cut  the  fiery  welter  of  the  western  sky.  The  range  hung 
a  curtain  before  the  setting  sun,  which  went  on  shining 
behind  it.  Over  the  white  flanks  of  the  sweep  of  hills 
walling  the  other  side  of  the  valley  there  began  presently 
to  spread  a  tender,  subtle,  infinitely  delicate  glow,  like  a 
maiden's  blush,  which  is  and  is  not. 

Vertner  talked  gaily  on,  in  the  wind ;  but  the  still 
peace  and  beauty  in  which  the  hills  lay  about  her,  and 
a  flying  rack  of  thoughts  within  her  mind,  kept  Dorothy 
quiet.  She  began  to  wish  that  she  had  not  set  out  to 
make  a  round  of  visits  :  she  had  come  out  to  escape,  if  she 
could,  from  her  miserable  thoughts  about  Dick ;  but  she 
had  not  lost  them,  and  this  new  trouble  about  her  father, 
about  Jasper,  seemed  to  connect  itself  with  the  other,  and 
to  agglutinate  the  whole  into  that  single  mass  of  vexation 
which  will  sometimes  cloud  over  a  day  or  an  hour  for  the 
lightest-hearted. 

She  would  have  turned  back,  but  she  bethought  her 
self  of  Mrs.  Felton,  for  Avhom  she  had  set  out,  and  who, 
she  knew,  was  battling  with  a  misery  of  her  own,  which 
her  visit  might  lighten  momently,  perhaps.  She  did  not 
say  to  herself  that  to  solace  Mrs.  Felton's  homesickness 

•/ 

might  be  a  roundabout  way  of  helping  herself  to  climb  a 
little  out  of  her  own  depths;  though  she  knew  well 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  271 

enough  that  the  only  real  happiness  lay,  and  must  always 
lie,  in  bringing  happiness  to  others. 

Mrs.  Felton  had  lately  come  to  Maverick  from  Phila 
delphia  as  a  bride,  having  married  a  capital  young  fellow, 
originally  from  the  same  city.  He  had  founded  a  pros 
perous  real-estate  and  insurance  business  in  Maverick 
within  the  year,  and  had  lately  been  encouraged  by  his 
success  to  return  to  the  East  long  enough  to  marry  the 
faithful  and  charming  girl  who  had  waited  four  years  for 
him.  She  was  just  passing  through  the  first  homesick 
time  in  which  young  wives,  fresh  from  certain  traditions 
of  the  East,  sit  in  puzzled  and  miserable  helplessness  be 
fore  the  conditions  of  Western  life.  Mrs.  Felton  felt  that 
the  desolation,  the  strangeness,  the  hideousness,  of  her 
first  month  in  Maverick — the  month  which  she  had 
looked  forward  to  as  the  happiest  of  her  life — had  left  a 
permanent  mark  on  her.  She  wondered  whether  they 
would  see  it  in  her  eyes  at  home  when  she  went  back. 
But  she  was  determined  that  they  never  should.  They 
had  told  her  that  it  would  be  something  like  this,  not 
guessing,  in  their  ignorance,  a  thousandth  part  of  the  fact, 
but  prophesying  in  the  cheerful  manner  of  kinsfolk  before 
one's  marriage.  They  should  never  know  how  she  realized 
their  prophecies. 

She  planned  to  confide  the  truth  to  Jessie  Kidder, 
who  was  betrothed  to  a  young  man  who  had  just  left 
Harvard,  and  had  gone  to  Dakota  to  start  a  horse  ranch  ; 
she  planned  to  warn  her  under  the  seal  of  confidence.  It 
was  wrong  to  let  a  young  girl  venture  upon  such  a 
future  blindly.  Jessie  would  be  dazed  and  troubled  by 
what  she  would  say  to  her ;  but  she  heard  her  answering 
that  she  didn't  care,  that  she  Avas  not  marrying  to  live  in 
18 


272  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

i 

this  place  or  that,  but  for  love  of  her  husband,  who  would 
be  sufficient  for  her  anywhere.  And  then  Mollie  Felton 
saw  how  she  must  tell  her  that  that  too  was  a  mistake : 
that  what  she  said  was  true  enough,  in  a  way,  and  more 
than  true  enough.  She  herself  had  never  been  so  happy. 
No.  But,  then,  she  had  never  been  so  unhappy.  She 
perceived  that  it  would  be  useless ;  but  if  she  ever  got 
home  again — she  no  longer  really  believed  that  they  would 
ever  be  free  to  retraverse  all  those  dreary  miles  of  rail — 
she  should  tell  her.  It  was  a  duty. 

Mrs.  Felton  was  of  course  not  very  well  seen  in  Mav 
erick.  She  was  thought  too  Eastern,  too  exclusive.  She 
had  an  honest  hatred  of  gossip,  and,  in  other  ways,  had 
not  proved  as  "  adaptable  "  as  some  of  the  ladies  could 
desire.  It  was  reported  that  she  had  once  said  that  she 
did  not  think  herself  better  than  her  butcher,  but  differ 
ent.  And  opinions  like  this  separated  her  from  such 
society  as  there  was  in  Maverick,  and  had  helped  to  make 
her  first  month  difficult. 

Dorothy  understood  her  trouble  exactly :  when  she 
had  first  come  to  the  West  she  herself  had  passed  through 
a  time  not  very  unlike  Mrs.  Felton's.  Even  in  the  midst 
of  her  week  or  two  of  homesickness,  however,  she  had 
been  able  to  see  it,  partly,  as  the  joke  it  was ;  and  when 
she  was  better  of  it,  the  humour  of  the  whole  Western 
situation  had  soon  so  penetrated  her,  that  she  remembered 
her  first  feeling  about  the  West,  now,  only  as  a  sentiment 
which  she  could  call  up,  at  need,  to  assist  her  sympathy 
for  another  in  like  case.  She  did  not  pretend  to  delight 
in  the  West,  now,  as  Kiteva  Snell  did ;  but  she  was  busy, 
she  was  absorbed  in  making  the  West  bearable  to  her 
father,  who  hated  it ;  she  Avas  up  to  her  eyes  in  the  busi- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  273 

ness  of  tempering  the  situation  to  him,  in  the  enterprise 
of  making  him  happy,  and  for  herself  she  had  ceased  to 
care  very  definitely.  One  was  happy  anywhere  where  one 
had  an  absorbing  occupation ;  and  it  was  this  wisdom 
that  she  was  presently  preaching  to  Mrs.  Felton,  when 
she  had  left  Vertner  with  Beatrice,  whom  they  met  near 
Mrs.  Felton's  house. 

Mrs.  Felton  had  often  accompanied  them  on  their 
rides  lately,  and  Dorothy  pretended  that  it  was  to  invite 
her  to  join  Beatrice  and  Ernfield  and  herself  in  a  ride  on 
the  morrow  that  she  had  called. 

Mrs.  Felton  was  not  like  the  pretty  little  Jewess  upon 
whom  Dorothy  called  next,  unhappy  becanse  she  "  did  so 
miss  the  matinees."  Mrs.  Felton's  homesickness,  if  pas 
sionate,  was  not  fantastic.  Dorothy  did  not  ask  Mrs. 
Stern  (who,  for  an  occult  reason  of  the  sort  that  no  one 
thought  of  questioning  in  Maverick,  chose  to  go  to 
Maurice's  church)  why  she  did  not  complain  of  indigesti- 
bility  of  the  clay  in  Lone  Creek  Valley ;  but  a  number  of 
impossible  questions  were  on  her  lips. 

At  Kiteva  Snell's  the  atmosphere  was  amusingly  dif 
ferent.  The  Snells,  of  whom  Kiteva  was  most  in  evi 
dence  socially,  were  very  happy  about  themselves  and  the 
West.  Miss  Kitty,  in  particular,  would  hear  nothing 
against  any  State  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  she  kept 
alive  a  fine  enthusiasm  about  Maverick  and  its  future 
which  had  the  fire  and  the  taking  largeness  of  a  senti 
ment  of  patriotism.  She  had  not  seen  New  York,  and 
did  not  care  to ;  but  she  knew  and  loved  the  Omaha  of 
her  birth,  though  she  could  seldom  be  persuaded  to  go  so 
far  East,  when  her  father  would  go  on  his  pass.  She  was 
glad  to  remember  that  even  her  name  was  Western,  for 


274  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

she  had  been  christened  Kiteva  in  honour  of  a  summer 
resort  for  the  people  of  Chicago  that  her  father  had  been 
engaged  in  booming  at  the  time  of  her  birth.  It  was  a 
regrettable  fact  that  the  books  she  wanted  to  read  were, 
for  the  most  part,  published  in  New  York  or  Boston,  and 
she  could  balance  this  misfortune  only  by  ordering  them 
through  the  local  newsdealer  (there  was  not  a  bookseller 
in  Maverick),  in  order  that  "  the  money,"  as  the  Western 
phrase  is,  "  might  not  go  out  of  the  town."  It  happened 
also  that  the  centre  of  her  present  intellectual  life  had  its 
physical  habitation  on  the  shores  of  a  New  York  lake ; 
but  she  tried  not  to  remember  that  the  advantages  of  the 
"  Chautauqua  Literary  Association "  were  derived  from 
Jamestown. 

Kiteva  had  acquired  her  fondness  for  reading  at  a 
Toledo  boarding-school,  where  one  could  acquire  a  glossy 
coat  of  culture  in  three  years,  with  diligence.  Kiteva  had 
used  the  diligence,  and  when  Dorothy  first  knew  her,  she 
was  in  the  early  maturity  of  the  habit  of  exactitude  and 
impeccability,  which  are  the  very  things  for  general  con 
versation.  Her  a  in  "  squalor  "  was  quite,  quite  long,  and 
she  pronounced  her  "Asia"  between  her  teeth,  with  the 
alluring  sibilant  effect — Ada.  She  accented  her  "le-gis'- 
lative "  on  the  second  syllable,  and  could  pronounce  a 
great  many  words  just  as  they  are  in  the  dictionary,  with 
out  smiling.  Nothing,  though,  was  so  nice  in  her  con 
versation  as  her  elegant  habit  of  bridling  the  shambling 
looseness  of  our  common  speech  in  colloquial  phrases, 
like  "couldn't  you,"  which  she  prettily  replaced  with 
"  could  not  you,"  and  the  sloven  "  a-tall,"  to  which  she 
restored  its  printed  aspect,  so  that  "  at  all,"  with  a  proper 
fence  between,  lived  again.  Her  favourite  books  of  refer- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  275 

ence  were  "  The  Orthoepist,"  "  A  Thousand  Words  often 
Mispronounced,"  and  "  The  Verbalist."  Her  vade  mecum, 
however,  was  "Don't,"  and  it  is  fair  to  say  that  Miss 
Snell  didn't. 

Kiteva  did  not  talk  of  the  things  of  the  mind,  as  she 
called  them,  with  Dorothy ;  she  talked  of  Jasper — a  little 
persistently,  Dorothy  thought.  She  had  heard  that  he 
had  returned,  and  had  seen  him  ride  by  from  her  window, 
but  had  not  yet  met  him  face  to  face  since  his  return. 
How  was  he  looking  ?  Had  he  enjoyed  his  visit  to  New 
York?  He  seemed  very  fond  of  the  ranch  and  of  his 
work  there.  He  had  done  wonders  with  it.  She  quoted 
sayings  of  Jasper ;  she  rehearsed  incidents  of  the  time  be 
fore  Dorothy  came  to  Maverick.  She  gave  the  impression 
of  having  known  Jasper  very  well.  Dorothy  wondered 
if  this  was  the  kind  of  young  lady  with  whom  he  occupied 
his  leisure  when  she  was  not  near. 

She  left  Kiteva  a  little  abruptly  at  last,  and  took  her 
way  back  to  her  own  end  of  the  town  with  a  vague  feel 
ing  of  weariness  tightening  about  her  heart.  Too  many 
things  had  happened  to-day ;  there  was  too  much  to  think 
of.  Her  head  went  round  in  a  whirl. 

She  entered  her  own  home  with  Jack,  at  last,  on  the 
verge  of  tears.  The  day  and  the  world  seemed  to  have 
gone  hopelessly  wrong.  Her  father,  who  had  learned  to 
interpret  the  signs  of  suppressed  emotion  in  her,  patted 
her  hand  quietly  as,  with  her  hat  and  jacket  still  on,  she 
took  her  accustomed  seat  in  his  study,  on  the  arm  of  his 
big  leather  chair. 

"Well,  little  girl,  what  is  it?"  he  asked,  laying 
down  the  volume  of  G-uy  de  Maupassant  he  had  been 
reading. 


276  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,  father.  I  don't  know.  I  wish 
you  wouldn't  go  into  this  paper  of  Mr.  Vertner's,"  she 
said  abruptly. 

"  But,  my  dear  young  woman — "  He  smiled  vaguely 
at  her. 

"  He  told  me  all  about  it  this  afternoon.  I  don't  be 
lieve,"  she  told  him,  stroking  his  beard  as  she  bent  over 
him,  "  that  you  know  as  much  about  the  '  Church  Kalen- 
dar '  as  I  do,  papa.  Ask  Mr.  Vertner  about  his  advertis 
ing,  and  his — his  '  scheme,'  as  he  calls  it.  It  isn't  nice. 
It  is  just  like  you,  papa,  not  to  have  looked  into  the  de 
tails  of  it,  at  all ;  and  to  have  accepted  the  idea  because 
Mr.  Virtner  says  it  is  a  good  one." 

"  Pshaw !  pshaw !  There's  nothing  wrong  with  the 
idea,  child.  What  do  you  know  of  papers,  Dorothy?" 
He  got  up  and  went  over  to  the  upright  piano  which  filled 
a  corner  of  the  study. 

This  room,  in  which  Maurice  wrote  his  sermons  and 
played  on  his  piano,  was  the  largest  in  the  house,  and 
occupied  the  whole  front  of  the  second  story.  Dorothy 
never  interrupted  him  here  in  the  mornings,  when  the 
superstition  was  that  he  was  hammering  out  his  sermons ; 
but  she  often  spent  the  evenings  with  him  in  its  smoke- 
laden  atmosphere.  Sermon-writing,  with  Maurice,  re 
quired  the  consumption  of  a  number  of  Havana  cigars, 
and  was  accompanied  by  a  good  deal  of  Sullivan  and  Of 
fenbach  on  the  piano.  Dorothy  would  hear  him  playing 
and  singing  snatches  of  comic  opera  in  the  mornings  for 
half  an  hour ;  then  the  piano  would  suddenly  go  silent, 
and,  from  below,  she  would  hear  him  pacing  the  floor. 
Then  this  sound,  too,  would  cease,  and  she  would  know 
that  he  was  at  work,  until  the  piano  burst  out  again.  In 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  2T7 

the  moments  of  silence  he  was  as  often  reading  as  writing ; 
but  this  would  have  counted  as  work,  too,  with  Dorothy, 
if  she  had  known  it.  She  had  a  little  pride  of  her  own  in 
his  learning.  Maurice's  smattering  of  a  number  of  sub 
jects  was  far  from  that,  but  he  was  by  nature  a  bookish 
man :  he  read  the  poets,  whom  he  was  fond  of  quoting  in 
his  sermons ;  he  had  once  relinquished  the  thought  of  a 
book  on  the  old  dramatists;  he  had  a  pretty  taste  for 
Barrow,  whose  sturdiness  and  solidity  attracted  him  by 
the  law  of  the  attraction  of  opposites,  perhaps ;  he  ram 
bled  through  him  from  time  to  time,  pencilling  his  winged 
adjectives ;  and  regularly,  once  a  year,  he  read  Thackeray 
from  start  to  finish.  His  contemporary  reading  was,  for 
the  most  part,  French ;  of  the  older  writers  he  liked 
Dumas,  whose  "  Trois  Mousquetaires  "  he  read  at  all  sea 
sons  ;  he  was  a  subscriber  to  the  "  Revue  des  Deux  JVIondes  " 
and  the  "  Saturday  Review,"  and  he  loathed  the  present 
school  of  American  fiction.  He  said  it  lacked — but  we 
know  what  it  lacks.  "  Come  and  sing,"  he  said,  as  he 
took  his  seat  on  the  piano-stool. 

Dorothy,  who  had  taken  up  her  knitting,  shook  her 
head.  She  seated  herself  in  the  chair  he  had  left,  and, 
lost  to  his  sight  in  its  depths,  she  stared  into  the  fire 
through  the  tears  of  overwrought  emotion  which  stole  out 
upon  her  eyelids,  and  coursed  silently  down  her  cheeks. 
Her  father,  after  a  dreamy  prelude,  had  rattled  into  the 
"  Entrance  March  "  from  the  "  Mikado." 

"DidVertner  say  how  he  was  getting  along?"  he 
asked,  pausing  in  the  middle  of  the  march. 

"  No,"  Dorothy  managed  to  reply  in  a  muffled  voice. 

"  I  should  like  to  get  out  the  first  number  in  January," 
he  said  meditatively.  He  whistled  a  bar  or  two  of  another 


278  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

air  from  the  same  opera  thoughtfully  over  to  himself,  and 
turned  to  the  piano  to  finish  it. 

"  Papa  ! "  she  said,  loud  enough  to  be  heard  above  the 
music.  He  rose  and  came  over  to  her. 

"  What !  crying  ?  "  he  exclaimed.  "  But  this  won't  do 
at  all."  He  drew  up  a  chair  beside  her,  and  took  her 
hand.  "  Why,  girlie,  there's  nothing  in  this — nothing." 
He  regarded  her  tenderly,  as  he  stroked  her  hand.  He 
let  her  sacrifice  herself  to  him  from  habit,  he  postponed 
her  to  many  things ;  but  he  loved  her.  One  saw  it  in  his 
glance  even  when  it  rested  on  her  casually ;  no  one  could 
have  seen  him  at  the  moment  without  feeling  sure  of  it. 
"  I  won't  enter  into  it  at  all  if  you  take  it  so  hard.  But 
you've  been  accepting  some  of  Vertner's  joking  literally. 
You  must  allow  for  his  way  of  looking  at  things.  Why, 
I  don't  believe  he  would  care  for  this  paper  idea  at  all  if 
he  didn't  see  a  joke  in  it." 

"  Yes,  papa,"  rejoined  Dorothy,  starting  up  in  her 
chair ;  "  that's  it.  It's  a  joke,  a  practical  joke ;  but  it 
isn't — it  isn't  quite  what  you  would  call  a  fair  one,  I  think, 
papa,  if  you  understood  it.  Do  look  into  it  before  you 
give  your  word  to  Mr.  Vertner  to  be  his  editor." 

"  Of  course  I  will,  little  girl.  Yertner  mustn't  be 
allowed  to  compromise  me.  Perhaps  I've  let  him  have  it 
too  much  his  own  way.  But  he  knows  about  the  business 
side  of  it;  and  after  my  experience  with  the  Church 
School  of  Music,  I'm  willing  to  let  some  one  else  take  all 
that  responsibility.  You  can  understand  that,  Dorothy." 

"  Oh,  father,  I'll  be  so  glad  if  you  will.  And  let  some 
one  else  find  the  money,  too." 

Maurice  pensively  stroked  his  long  golden  mustache, 
with  its  young-mannish  upward  turn  at  the  ends,  without 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  279 

speaking.  "  I  suppose  you  see  the  necessity  of  my  mak 
ing  more  money,  my  dear.  The  last  monthly  bills  look 
bad.  Maverick  seems  to  be  dearer  than  Laughing  Valley. 
This  editorship  is  more  like  a  necessity  than  a  choice.  It 
isn't  time  to  be  too  nice,"  he  said,  with  the  doubtful  ac 
cent  of  waiting  her  opinion  on  this. 

This  man,  who  could  satisfy  his  own  conscience  about 
one  and  another  matter  of  daily  dealing  with  his  fellow- 
men,  and  forget  it  lightly  ;  who  could  shuffle  and  balance 
before  doubtful  questions,  and  choose  the  easy  issue  with 
a  sigh  for  the  man  he  might  have  been  if  things  had 
turned  out  differently  with  him,  was  afraid  before  his 
daughter's  moral  judgments.  Their  certainty,  their  bare, 
blind  justice,  were  more  than  he  could  bear  at  times.  He 
avoided  all  such  questions  with  her  when  he  could,  but 
he  had  committed  himself  to  this  paper  with  Vertner ;  and 
since  he  must  go  on  with  it,  and  she  had  learned  of  his 
connection  with  the  plan,  he  would  rather  go  on  with 
her  support  than  without  it.  They  lived  too  much  alone, 
he  was  too  dependent  upon  her  for  sympathy,  to  make  it 
pleasant  for  him  to  carry  on  constantly,  by  her  side,  a  work 
of  which  she  disapproved.  He  was  sensitive ;  he  always 
reckoned  with  that.  If  he  had  not  been,  it  would  have 
been  easy  to  use  his  authority,  as  he  sometimes  did  in 
cases  like  that  of  the  money  he  procured  from  time  to 
time  to  meet  their  bills.  No  one  knew  better  than  Mau 
rice  how  to  put  aside  discussion  of  painful  subjects  with 
dignity ;  but  no  one  liked  less  to  accept  what  such  uses  of 
power  involved. 

He  did  not  think  for  a  moment  of  abandoning  the 
scheme  of  the  paper;  he  believed  that  he  and  Vertner 
would  make  a  very  good  thing  of  it  together ;  and  it  was 


280  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

five  years  since  he  had  drunk  just  the  wine  he  liked.  The 
moral  question,  which  had  never  occurred  to  him  until 
Dorothy  suggested  it,  he  had  dismissed  without  a  thought. 
He  understood  Vertner's  advertising  plan  at  least  as  well 
as  Dorothy,  but  he  saw  nothing  wrong  in  it,  as  he  had 
told  her. 

He  explained  to  her,  now,  that  it  was  not  original  with 
Vertner ;  that  it  had  been  tried  in  the  East,  where  a  man 
had  made  a  small  fortune  out  of  it.  There  was  no  harm 
in  it,  except  as  there  was  harm  in  all  business.  She  did 
not  hope  to  bring  in  a  new  sort  of  business  transaction, 
which  would  leave  the  money  in  the  same  pocket  after  it 
as  before  it,  he  hoped.  They  did  not  dispute — he  and 
Vertner — that  they  were  going  to  take  money  for  the 
advertising ;  but  they  were  going  to  give  quid  pro  quo, 
strictly.  They  did  not  even  leave  the  degree  of  circula 
tion  given  to  the  advertisement  in  doubt,  as  was  usual. 
The  advertisers  were  to  pay  for  what  they  got,  and  for  no 
more  than  they  got.  She  heard  Vertner  in  all  these 
phrases,  yet  it  was  her  father  who  spoke,  and  she  did  not 
know  how  to  put  her  doubts  together  and  bring  them  to 
bear  on  him.  She  found  herself  shaken  by  his  confidence ; 
but  she  said :  "  I  see  you  think  you  understand,  papa. 
But  you  don't ;  you  can't,  or  you  wouldn't  have  anything 
to  do  with  it.  These  advertisers  you  speak  of — they  are 
not  to  know  what  Mr.  Vertner  means  to  do.  They  will 
suppose  that  they  are  giving  their  advertisement  to  a 
little  paper  which  will  have  a  circulation  of  a  few  hundred 
copies.  When  the  bills  come  to  them,  if  Mr.  Vertner 
succeeds  in  what  he  hopes  to  do,  they  will  be  for  a  circu 
lation  of  a  great  many  thousands ;  it  will  go  on  increas 
ing  every  month,  and  they  will  have  no  redress  because 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  281 

Mr.  Vertuer  is  going  to  make  them  sign  a  contract  for  a 
year." 

Maurice  laughed  lightly.  "  Don't  you  think  you  may 
safely  leave  Vertner's  scheme  to  the  business  men  of  the 
Great  West,  Dorothy  ?  Do  you  think  it  likely  that  they 
will  not  understand  all  the  bearings  of  a  proposition  that 
a  girl  like  you  can  understand  ?  " 

Dorothy  stared  at  him.  "  Oh,  I  suppose  so,"  she  said 
after  a  moment,  daunted.  "  But  promise  to  insist  on  Mr. 
Vertner  making  it  plain  to  them  what  they  are  doing." 
She  laughed  herself  at  the  futility  cd  this.  "  I  mean,"  she 
amended,  "  that  the  contract  should  imply  what  Mr.  Vert 
ner  is  about — what  he  hopes  to  do." 

"  They  would  laugh  at  what  he  hopes  to  do.  You  do, 
yourself,  Dorothy.  Every  one  who  knows  Vertner  under 
stands  his  disposition  to  add  ciphers  to  his  schemes.  You 
may  be  sure  he  has  given  them  all  the  ciphers  that  he 
thinks  they  will  credit.  After  all,  you  know,  Vertner  is 
honest.  You  mustn't  be  losing  yourself  in  any  theo 
ries  depending  on  the  opposite  supposition,  you  know, 
Dorothy." 

"  Oh,  of  course  he's  honest,"  sighed  she,  parting  with 
her  position,  in  fragments,  as  she  felt,  but  with  a  deep  re 
luctance.  She  saw  that  it  was  one  of  those  obscure  cases 
where  the  ethics  have  a  tendency  to  liquefy,  to  escape 
from  the  instinct  which  is  their  only  witness,  and  to  melt 
into  the  medium  of  the  business-like,  the  practical,  the 
customary.  She  could  not  detain  them  ;  perhaps  she  was 
wrong  to  try.  Her  father  must  know ;  and,  "  Yes,  I'm 
sure  Mr.  Vertner  is  good,"  she  found  herself  saying,  "  in 
spite  of  his  ways — perhaps  because  of  them.  There  is 
something  very  charming  about  him.  He  is  so  sure,  so 


28'2  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

gay.  And  I  don't  believe  that  he  w<mld  deliberately  do 
anything  that  he  thought  wrong,"  she  argued  aloud  with 
herself. 

"  Certainly  not." 

She  balanced  it  all  in  her  mind  a  moment,  and  then, 
with  the  recurrence  of  her  loyal  trust  in  her  father,  which 
at  the  end  of  everything  had  always  to  be  the  permanent 
fact  in  her  relation  to  him  and  to  his  doings,  she  said,  with 
a  brightening  face,  "  Oh,  well,  if  you  have  really  looked 
into  it,  papa,  and  think  it  right,  why — " 

"Yes?" 

"  Why,  of  course  it  is  right.  But  you  will  look  care 
fully  after  Mr.  Vertner,  won't  you,  papa?  You  will  see 
that  he  makes  an  agreement  that  will  be  fair  to  every 
body  ?  "  He  gave  the  promise  readily,  though  he  had  no 
intention  of  interfering  with  Vertner.  She  leaned  over, 
and  kissed  him.  "  Dear  papa !  And  shall  we  be  shock 
ingly  rich  ?  " 

"  Appallingly ! "  laughed  Maurice,  easily,  as  he  returned 
to  the  piano.  "  Come  and  sing  for  me." 

She  came  over  to  his  side,  adjusting  the  light  so  that 
it  should  not  fall  into  the  eyes  he  tired  by  late  reading  at 
night. 

"  Then  you  can  have  a  horse  and  phaeton,"  she  said, 
stroking  his  hair,  as  he  spread  out  the  music  for  her. 

"  I  am  not  so  ambitious,  my  dear.  What  I'm  hoping 
for  is  an  income  which  won't  force  me  to  look  three  times 
at  a  dollar.  Twice,  I  can  bear.  Well,  are  you  ready  ?  " 

He  struck  a  chord  on  the  piano,  and  she  raised  her 
voice  to  the  first  notes  of  a  quaint  old  air. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  283 


XIX. 

PHILIP  remained  a  fortnight  at  Pifion,  and  it  was  a 
week  before  Jasper  was  seen  in  Maverick  again.  Dorothy 
heard  from  Dr.  Ernfield  on  the  day  following  her  parish 
visits  and  her  meeting  with  Vertner  that  Jasper  was  suf 
fering  from  the  effects  of  an  accident ;  but  Ernfield  either 
knew  no  more,  or  thought  it  well  to  say  no  more,  for  she 
got  no  particulars  from  him.  Vertner  had  heard  all  about 
the  affair  in  the  mine  from  Cutter ;  but  he  had  left  town 
the  day  after  their  meeting  to  look  after  a  contract  for 
the  electric  lighting  of  Empire,  a  mining-camp  lying  to 
the  northward,  and  was  not  expected  to  return  for  some 
days,  so  that  Dorothy  learned  nothing  from  him. 

Jasper's  first  clear  thought  on  returning  to  conscious 
ness  was  of  her.  What  would  she  think  of  the  fight,  if  it 
should  come  to  her  ears  ?  Her  swift,  pitiless  moral  judg 
ments  were  as  terrible  to  him  as  they  were  to  her  father. 
Suppose  she  thought  him  in  the  wrong? 

But  he  believed  that  she  had  not  the  material  for  such 
a  thought.  Philip's  freak  of  reserve  had  spared  her  some 
facts  that  might  affect  her  judgment,  and  he  believed  that, 
in  any  event,  the  initial  faith  in  him  which  Dorothy  re 
tained  from  the  habit  of  an  earlier  day  would  carry  him 
through  a  good  deal  with  her.  He  accepted  now,  in  good 
faith,  Philip's  assertion  of  his  forbearance  from  his  obvi 
ous  opportunity,  and  he  saw  that  she  would  never  hear 
Philip's  story  until  he  should  force  Philip  to  defend  him 
self  by  telling  her  his  own.  What  a  frightful  ass  Philip 
was  to  play  the  chivalric  at  that  rate,  he  mused.  But 
that  was  his  affair. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

His  thoughts  melted  dizzily  into  one  another,  as  he  lay 
half  awake  on  the  morning  after  the  accident,  trying  his 
eyes  in  a  blinking  way  every  little  while  on  the  view  from 
his  bedroom  window.  The  cowboy  who  had  been  nurs 
ing  him  assured  him  that  the  hill  he  saw  was  Mount 
Blanco,  fast  enough.  To  Jasper  it  was  a  green  blur. 
Some  sort  of  film  seemed  to  be  crackling  and  sparkling 
before  his  eyes,  like  a  kaleidoscope,  eternally  breaking  up 
and  renewing  itself.  He  saw  objects  as  the  natural  eye 
sees  the  page  of  a  book  held  within  an  inch  of  the  pupil. 
He  felt  vaguely  for  the  bandage  on  his  forehead,  and  then 
remembered  again  how  it  came  there,  and  all  that  had  led 
up  to  it.  At  recollection  of  the  blow,  the  suffocating 
sense  of  hatred  and  rage  he  remembered  as  he  fell  was 
fresh  in  his  mind  again.  He  clenched  his  hands  under 
the  bedclothes.  When  he  was  well  again,  he  should  not 
spare. 

The  thought  that  Philip  might  be  making  favour 
with  Dorothy,  or  that  she  might  have  learned  what  he 
had  refused  to  tell  her,  and  that  the  knowledge  might — 
nay,  certainly  would — have  effected  a  promotion  of  him 
in  her  kindness,  caused  him  to  thresh  restlessly  about  in 
the  bed.  He  told  Ernfield,  when  he  came,  that  he  must 
get  up  to-day.  Ernfield  smiled  quietly,  and  asked  him  to 
try  sitting  up  in  bed.  He  straightened  himself,  and  sat 
up  painfully,  his  eyes  wild  and  unseeing,  his  carefully 
kept  hair  in  disarray.  The  air  dissolved  about  him,  he 
clutched  at  his  fading  consciousness,  and  fell  back  among 
the  pillows  with  a  moaning  curse  on  his  lips. 

It  was  the  fourth  day  before  Ernfield  would  allow  him 
to  sit  about  in  his  dressing-gown  and  write  a  letter,  and 
the  sixth  before  he  pronounced  him  well  enough  to  try 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  285 

the  voyage  down-stairs,  staying  himself  upon  the  balus 
trade. 

He  made  Ernfield  remain  to  dinner  with  him  the  first 
day.  "  I  say,  I've  been  taking  a  simple  cut  pretty  hard, 
seems  to  me.  What's  been  the  matter?  What  have  I 
had  ?  " 

"  Why,  you  haven't  had  it,"  said  Ernfield. 

"  How's  that  ?  You  mean  I've  escaped  it.  Well,  what 
have  I  escaped  ?  " 

"  Congestion  of  the  brain." 

"  Humph  !  "  exclaimed  Jasper,  without  troubling  him 
self  to  explain  the  connection.  "  That  brother  of  mine  is 
a  brute."  He  asked  Ernfield  if  he  would  take  another 
bit  of  venison,  and  Ernfield  did  not  pursue  the  subject. 
He  had  his  own  notions  of  the  way  his  patient  had  come 
by  his  cut. 

"  I  say,  Ernfield,"  Jasper  went  on,  after  a  moment, 
"  you  knew  something  of  my  new  mother  when  she  was 
here  in  Maverick.  What  was  she  like  ?  " 

"  Like  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  you  know  I  never  saw  much  of  her.  Was  she 
the  kind  of  woman  to  make  my  father  happy,  for  instance  ?  " 

Ernfield  busied  himself  with  his  fresh  slice  of  venison, 
pursuing  a  bit  of  currant"  jelly  with  his  fork.  "I  didn't 
know  your  father  well ;  I  couldn't  say,"  he  answered. 
"  One  ought  to  know  more  than  one  party  to  a  marriage 
to  answer  a  question  like  that." 

Jasper  had  heard  fragments  of  the  talk  which  still 
went  on  in  Maverick  about  Ernfield  and  Margaret,  of 
course.  He  was  revolving  the  gossip  of  the  town  in  his 
mind,  as  he  bent  his  shrewd,  penetrating  eyes  on  his  com 
panion's  face. 


286  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Yes ;  to  be  sure.  But  you  would  form  some  idea  of 
her  temperament.  Would  she  be  the  sort  of  woman,  for 
example,  to  support  my  father  in — well,  in  what  you 
might  call  the  extravagances  of  his  temperament?  I  sup 
pose  you  know  him  well  enough  to  understand  what  I 
mean." 

Ernfield  looked  at  him  for  what  seemed  a  long  time 
without  speaking.  "  Yes,"  said  he,  at  last,  with  inten 
tion  ;  "  I  know  what  you  mean." 

"  It  was  rather  rough,  wasn't  it  ? "  agreed  Jasper  to 
the  unspoken  comment. 

"  It  was  cowardly,"  said  Ernfield,  briefly. 

"  It  certainly  left  Miss  Derwenter  with  a  nasty  posi 
tion  on  her  hands.  It  was  a  test  of  character — abandon 
ing  her  on  her  wedding-day,"  he  said  tentatively.  But 
Ernfield  did  not  offer  to  discuss  this.  "  She  came  out  of 
it  curiously — on  a  plan  of  her  own,"  he  mused.  "  But  it's 
given  me  a  kind  of  respect  for  her.  Not  every  woman 
would  have  done  it,  you  know,  Ernfield." 

"  I  know,"  nodded  Ernfield  to  the  canned  peaches, 
which  had  been  set  before  him. 

"  She  answered  my  question  for  me,  there :  she  sup 
ported  him  with  a  vengeance.  But  would  she  in  a  case 
where  she  wasn't  concerned  in  just  that  helpless  way  ?  " 

"  I  can't  answer  that,"  said  Ernfield,  after  a  moment. 
"  She  would  do  what  seemed  right  to  her."  , 

"  Yes,"  rejoined  Jasper;  "I  gather  that.  She  seems 
to  have  a  conscience.  But  she  seems  fond  of  father,  too. 
What  I  was  wondering  was  whether  in  a  case  where  he 
was  on  one  side  and  her  conscience  on  the  other,  she 
mightn't — well,  negotiate  with  her  conscience." 

Ernfield  glanced  at  him  without  speaking. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  287 

"  Well,  I'm  glad  you  think  so,"  said  Jasper,  after  a 
moment,  in  response  to  Ernfield's  contemptuous  glance. 
"Father  needs  a  check."  He  turned  the  subject  then; 
but  as  he  lighted  Ernfield's  cigarette  for  him  he  asked 
carelessly,  "Where  did  the  wedding- party  go?  Did  you 
hear?" 

Ernfield  perceived  that  he  meant  to  imply  that  he 
might  have  heard  from  Margaret  since  her  departure 
from  Maverick.  But  he  chose  not  to  resent  this.  Jasper 
was  not  worth  the  powder. 

"  No,"  he  replied.     He  puffed  his  cigarette  in  silence. 

The  following  day,  seeing  how  Jasper  chafed  under 
his  confinement,  and  thinking,  on  the  whole,  it  might  be 
less  harmful  for  him  to  venture  out  than  to  remain  within 
doors,  lashing  himself  into  a  state  of  morbid  irritation, 
Ernfield  consented  to  allow  him  to  drive  to  town.  Hiding 
he  forbade,  and  Jasper  found  that  the  jolting  of  his  buck- 
board  was  all  he  cared  to  bear  for  the  present. 

He  had  not  seen  Snell  since  the  day  he  had  called  to 
make  his  preposterous  announcement,  but  this  had  not 
surprised  him.  His  father  and  brother  were  too  wise  to 
attempt  to  push  the  matter  to  a  conclusion  while  he  lay 
ill ;  but  they  should  see  that  he  was  not  seeking  a  pro 
longation  of  the  truce.  He  meant  that  they  should  hear 
from  him  at  once. 

When  he  had  been  to  his  lawyer,  and  arranged  with 
him  to  secure  a  temporary  injunction  against  Snell,  ana 
to  begin  suit  against  his  father,  he  drove  to  the  Maurices' 
cottage,  smiling  for  the  first  time  since  his  discomfiture  at 
the  "  Snow  Find." 

He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  a  definite  move  which 
would  at  least  relieve  him  of  the  fear  of  what  Philip 
19 


288  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

might  be  accomplishing  with  Miss  Maurice  behind  his 
back. 

She  came  in  to  him  with  her  face  alive  with  sympathy, 
and  Jasper  was  agreeably  sure  that  he  had  not  been  wrong 
in  thinking  she  had  warmed  to  him  with  a  new  kindness 
in  the  week  before  his  accident,  while  he  added  to  himself 
that  his  illness  and  the  wound  on  his  forehead  were  not 
things  to  diminish  her  mood  of  good  will.  He  lacked 
material  for  guessing  that  part  of  her  mood  of  sympathy 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  she  had  just  parted  with  Dick 
Messiter,  who  had  stopped  over  a  train  to  call  on  her 
father  in  regard  to  some  business  on  his  return  from  a 
visit  to  Denver.  She  had  found  him  much  changed  in 
the  week  that  had  passed  since  his  return  to  his  work  at 
Laughing  Valley  City.  Much  more,  Jasper  lacked  facts 
to  understand  that  her  recent  disposition  towards  him  was 
the  outcome  of  the  talk  between  her  and  Philip  which  had 
followed  his  encounter  with  Philip  in  the  doorway  of  the 
room  in  which  he  was  now  sitting.  He  was  occupied,  so 
far  as  his  mind  turned  towards  Philip's  refusal,  for  motives 
of  his  own,  to  give  him  away,  with  the  negative  good  for 
tune  that  she  had  no  information  about  their  quarrel.  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  to  imagine  that  if  she  knew  of  a 
quarrel  between  them,  she  must  believe  one  of  them  in 
the  wrong,  and  that  Philip  might  be  suffering  for  his 
quixotic  silence. 

"  You  have  been  ill,"  she  said.  "  You  have  been  suf 
fering." 

"  Oh,  so,  so,"  returned  Jasper.  "  I  got  a  rather  nasty 
cut." 

"  Tell  me  how  it  happened.  No  one  has  been  able  to 
say — or  perhaps  no  one  would." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  289 

Jasper  slipped  down  in  the  sleepy-hollow  chair  she  had 
forced  him  to  take,  and  toasted  the  foot  he  stretched 
towards  the  fire,  enjoying  her  interest  in  his  illness.  His 
pallor,  she  thought,  became  him ;  and  the  firelight,  play 
ing  on  his  handsome  face,  and  twinkling  whimsically  upon 
the  court-plastered  wound,  lent  his  solid,  prosy  good  looks 
a  remote  effect  of  distinction  and  of  glamour. 

"  Don't  let  me  ask,  if  it's  a  secret.  But  if  it  isn't  a 
secret,"  she  went  on  with  a  laugh,  "  you  can  make  it  as 
romantic  as  you  like,  for  I've  heard  nothing.  You  can 
make  out  that  you  have  been  rescuing  a  lovely  maiden 
from  the  Utes,  if  you  wish.  That  would  be  as  pretty  as 
anything.  Or  you  can  have  been  dragged  by  Vixen,  with 
your  foot  caught  in  the  stirrup ;  that  would  be  exciting. 
Or  a  fight  with  the  Eveleighs  about  your  water  rights,  or 
fences,  which  would  make  a  good  story.  I  like  mining 
stories,  too,  Mr.  Deed." 

She  smiled  at  him  from  her  seat  at  the  other  corner  of 
the  fire.  She  often  chaffed  him  to  avoid  the  serious  talk 
with  him  which  she  had  begun  to  see  must  one  day  come, 
and  which  she  feared. 

"  This  is  a  mining  story,"  returned  Jasper,  staring 
musingly  into  the  fire,  with  a  disengaged  look. 

"  How  nice  !     Well  ?  " 

"  Well — I  think  I  mustn't  tell  it,"  he  said,  still  seem 
ing  to  muse.  •  He  glanced  at  her  speculatively,  and  Doro 
thy  thought  she  saw  that  she  would  not  be  overstepping 
in  urging  him. 

"  No,"  he  said,  shaking  his  head  slightly,  in  response 
to  her  mock-humble  entreaty ;  "  it  isn't  altogether  my 
story." 

"  How  tiresome !     Couldn't  we  buy  out  the  other  man's 


290  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

rights  in  the  story  ?    Is  he  the  same  man  who  owns  a  part 
of  the  mine — was  that  it  ?  " 

The  guess  was  wide,  and  yet  so  near  that  Jasper  smiled. 
"  Something  like  that." 

He  glanced  at  her  with  intelligence,  and  she  suddenly 
paled,  and  cried,  in  a  kind  of  fright :  "  Surely  it  isn't  your 
brother !  Surely  you  haven't  been — been —  ?  "  She 
breathed  quickly  and  stopped. 

"  Yes,"  owned  Jasper,  with  the  air  of  a  man  who 
yields  to  a  revelation  past  remedy — "  yes.  Since  you  have 
guessed  it,  there  is  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't  know. 
But  don't  ask  me  any  more  about  it,  please.  I  couldn't 
tell  you." 

"  Oh,  no,  no  ! "  cried  Dorothy.  "  Of  course  not.  And 
it  was  he  who —  Oh  ! "  she  exclaimed.  Her  tone  ex 
pressed  reproach  and  repulsion  and  withdrawal.  She 
shuddered  away  from  the  thought  of  Philip's  act.  "  And 
you  have  been  very  ill.  I  can  see  it.  Dr.  Ernfield  would 
not  own  it,  but  I  could  see  that  he  was  anxious.  He  was 
afraid  of  its  affecting  the  brain." 

"  Yes,"  said  Jasper,  lightly ;  "  congestion,  and  all  that. ' 
But  there  was  never  any  actual  danger  of  that,  I  fancy. 
Ernfield  didn't  really  know  what  had  happened  to  me, 
you  know — one  wouldn't  feel  inclined  to  tell  even  a  phy 
sician  a  thing  like  that,  of  course — and  he  thought  my 
little  scratch  more  serious  than  it  was.  You  see,  I  have 
scored  on  him.  Here  I  am." 

"  Yes;  oh,  yes,"  breathed  Dorothy  in  an  absorption  of 
which  she  was  unaware,  and  which  was  far  from  being  as 
wholly  related  to  the  man  beside  her  as  he  was  believing 
with  a  joy  which  he  could  not  have  concealed  if  she  had 
been  more  attentive.  "  But  you  might  not  have  escaped. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  291 

A  little  more  one  way  or  the  other,  and —  Oh,  how  could 
he!" 

Jasper  had  not  expected  such  success.  He  thought  of 
Philip's  chances  with  her  now  almost  with  compassion. 
It  was  a  pretty  outcome  of  the  fight  that  it  should  make 
for  him  in  her  favour,  and  lead  her  to  so  desirable  a 
thought  of  Philip.  In  the  luxury  of  success,  he  felt  that 
he  could  afford  to  be  generous — generous  enough,  at  least, 
to  let  her  see  that  he  was. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know,"  he  deprecated. 

"  Oh,  but  I  do,"  exclaimed  Dorothy,  quickly.  All  her 
old  thoughts  about  the  relations  of  the  brothers  returned 
to  her,  and  she  now  caused  Philip  to  suffer  for  all  the  ex 
cuses  she  had  found  for  him. 

"  No,  no !  It  was  fair  enough — as  fair  as  such  things 
can  be." 

"  Would  it  have  been  fair  if  he  had  killed  you  ?  "  she 
asked  conclusively. 

Jasper  bent  quickly  toward  her,  fixing  her  with  a  pas 
sionate  glance.  "  Would  you  have  cared  ?  "  he  asked. 

All  his  love  for  her  was  in  his  eyes.  She  lowered  her 
own. 

"  Of  course,"  she  stammered.  "  Why,  yes.  But  of 
course!" 

"  Would  you  have  cared  in  the  way  I  mean  ?  " 

She  controlled  her  eyes  now,  and  swept  his  pale,  eager 
face  with  a  furtive  look. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said  hastily.     "  I— I  think  not." 

"  Oh,  but  Dorothy,  girl,  surely  this  time  you  know  ?  I 
have  loved  you  ever  since ;  I  love  you  even  more,  I  think, 
than  then.  It  has  gone  on.  It  has  grown.  You  won't 
say  that  you  haven't  seen  this — that  you  haven't  been 


292  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

answering  it  a  little  bit  in  your  heart.  I  can't  live  with 
out  your  love.  I've  tried  it  a  long  time.  I  can't,"  he 
cried—"  I  can't !  " 

It  was  the  thrilling?  irresistible  note  of  passion.  It 
seemed  to  infold  and  seize  her,  to  benumb  her  will,  to 
make  a  reason  of  itself  for  a  return.  £he  remembered 
thinking,  in  a  prevision  of  this  scene,  how  his  will  must 
always  make  a  reason  for  anything  he  strongly  wished. 
The  old  fascination  of  his  feeling  for  her  returned  upon 
her.  Re-created,  and  palpitating  before  her  as  if  it  had 
never  ceased  to  be  an  active  part  of  her  experience,  the 
remembered  charm  went  through  her  veins  exultingly.  • 

For  a  moment  she  felt  herself  slipping,  slipping. 

Jasper  read  the  half  consent  in  her  eyes.  He  rose, 
and  drew  near  her,  but  at  the  touch  of  his  arm  she  started 
away. 

"  No,  no  ! "  she  cried,  rising  in  her  turn ;  "  I  don't 
know !  I  must  have  time  to  think.  Don't  press  me  for 
an  answer  now !  Don't ! " 

There  was  a  moment  in  which  Jasper  stared  hungrily 
into  her  eyes,  balancing  in  the  remote  second  conscious 
ness  the  wisdom  of  pressing  his  advantage,  or  of  comply 
ing  with  the  frightened  longing  for  escape  from  this 
moment's  decision  which  he  saw  in  her  face.  Her  look 
at  once  promised  his  bliss  and  confounded  him. 

It  was  at  last  his  willingness  to  use  the  subtle  rather 
than  the  direct  means  of  arriving  at  any  object  which 
decided  him. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  let  it  be  so,  then.  But  you  will  let 
me  have  my  answer  soon,  Dorothy  ?  " 

"  Yes,  soon,"  she  murmured  breathlessly. 

"  You  have  seen  that  I  still  cared.     You  have  let  me 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  293 

go  on.  I  really  don't  believe  you  could  have  the  heart, 
you  know,  to  cast  me  off  now.  I  don't  ask  you  to  say 
anything  to  that.  I  only  tell  you  to  let  you  know  that  I 
trust  you  completely." 

He  snatched  her  hand  to  his  lips,  and  was  gone.  Dor 
othy  trembled  to  a  seat,  torn  and  pulled  by  a  mob  of 
emotions — excited,  intoxicated,  exhausted. 

How  could  Philip  have  done  a  thing  like  that !  She 
wondered  languidly  where  he  was. 


XX. 

the  next    day  Dorothy  received    the  following 


note  : 


DEAR  Miss  MAURICE  :  I  am  leaving  town  to-morrow  for  a  week. 
Will  you  give  me,  to  take  with  me,  the  hope  of  an  answer  on  my 
return  ?  I  won't  bother  you  to  say  good-bye. 

Yours  —  whatever  your  answer,  always  yours, 

JASPER  DEED. 

And  to  this  temperate  note  she  wrote,  "In  a  week, 
then."  It  was  like  his  invariable  consideration  to  deny 
himself  a  word  of  farewell.  Indeed,  she  could  not  help 
imagining  in  this  intended  absence  a  more  intimate  chiv 
alry.  It  was  a  fine  withholding  of  himself  from  so  much 
as  the  colour  of  seeming  to  influence  her  decision. 

The  truth  was  that  Jasper  had  found  a  clue  to  his 
father's  whereabouts  through  the  Leadville  lawyer  to 
whom  he  had  written  the  first  day  he  had  been  allowed  to 
sit  up  ;  and  after  a  visit  to  Leadville  he  was  going  in  pur 
suit  of  him. 


294  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

The  impulse  of  another  man  would  have  been  to  try 
to  make  sure  of  his  future  with  Dorothy  before  leaving 
Maverick ;  but  Jasper  saw  clearly  that  this  course,  to 
which  everything  save  his  discretion  urged  him,  would 
only  make  sure  of  a  failure  which  no  after  patience  could 
retrieve.  It  was  better  to  use  a  little  patience  now,  and 
to  go  away.  But  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  have  a 
little  talk  with  Maurice,  whom  he  found  at  the  station,  as 
he  was  boarding  his  train. 

He  took  the  sleeping-car  for  his  destination  with  a 
cozy  prophecy  of  success  warming  his  heart.  His  rever 
ence  for  Dorothy's  instinctive  purity  and  Tightness  of  feel 
ing,  which  was  at  the  root  of  his  love  for  her,  consorted 
with  his  half-conscious  habit  of  trading  on  these  qualities 
in  her,  and  he  was  estimating,  as  he  stepped  into  the 
train,  the  construction  of  his  departure  which  he  could 
rely  upon  from  her  rectitude.  He  fancied  her  construing 
it  almost  precisely  as  she  did,  and  as  he  settled  himself  in 
the  smoking-compartment  of  the  sleeper  with  his  cigar, 
he  experienced  an  inexpensive  thrill  of  virtue  at  the 
thought  of  the  nobility  she  would  be  imagining  in  him. 

The  sun  shone  at  Mineral  Springs  as  it  did  at  Maver 
ick,  though  there  was  no  snow  at  Maverick,  and  at  Min 
eral  Springs  the  snow  lay  hugely  heaped  as  far  as  Deed 
and  Margaret  could  see  from  the  hotel  portico.  The 
snow,  in  fact,  covered  all  the  one-storied  houses  in  the 
place  to  their  roofs,  and  lay  in  the  Pass  at  a  depth  which 
for  over  three  weeks  had  cut  off  all  communication  with 
the  outside  world,  and  kept  them  prisoners.  The  stage 
had  ceased  running  on  the  day  of  the  snowfall,  being 
caught  in  the  Pass,  and  snowed  up  there  out  of  sight.  It 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  295 

was  likely  to  lie  there  until  the  succeeding  spring.  The 
driver  and  his  one  passenger  had  ridden  into  Mineral 
Springs  on  the  backs  of  the  horses. 

Mineral  Springs  was  usually  cut  off  from  the  outside 
world  for  three  or  four  months  in  the  year.  At  its  alti 
tude,  and  in  its  situation,  approachable  only  by  a  narrow 
defile  between  close-lying  hills,  this  was  expected,  and,  as 
the  inhabitants  would  have  said,  discounted.  But  the 
snow  did  not  usually  come  so  early. 

Margaret  had  smiled  with  the  wistful  smile  of  happi 
ness,  which  had  made  a  home  for  itself  about  her  mouth 
since  the  day  of  her  marriage,  at  the  intelligence  which 
Deed  brought  her  on  the  morning  after  their  arrival,  that 
they  were  "  snowed  in."  And  Deed  had  found  an  ambig 
uous  laugh.  Margaret  said  it  was  delightful.  Now  they 
could  be  sure  of  quiet.  Now  they  should  know  that  the 
disagreeable  visitors  to  the  Springs,  whom  she  had  feared 
when  he  first  suggested  the  place,  would  stay  away.  Of 
course  it  wasn't  the  season  for  them,  anyway.  She  knew 
that.  But  those  half-dozen  stray  people  who  sometimes 
came  to  such  places  late  were  worse  than  a  mob.  One 
could  decently  withhold  one's  self  from  a  mob  ;  but  the 
half-dozen,  if  they  were  in  the  same  hotel,  demanded 
sociability,  sat  at  the  same  table,  wanted  to  organize  ex 
cursions,  to  get  up  amusements,  to  talk  at  unpropitious 
times,  to  discuss — the  women  were  the  worst — the  new 
stitch,  and  the  children  left  at  home,  and  the  altitude. 

When  she  found  that  there  were  no  visitors  whatever 
at  the  hotel  besides  themselves,  she  had  a  moment  of 
bewilderment;  but  she  said  she  liked  that,  too.  The 
hotel,  which  was  a  large  frame  structure  of  three  stories, 
built  for  the  summer  season,  when  it  was  crowded  by 


296  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

invalids  and  tourists,  was  a  building  designed  to  shelter 
forty  guests,  and  even  Margaret  found  the  great  dining- 
room  a  little  daunting  for  two.  She  went  to  the  wife  of 
the  landlord, — a  hospitable  creature,  largely  planned  like 
the  hotel, — and  begged  that  they  might  be  allowed  to 
dine  in  modified  state.  The  landlady  was  glad  to  close 
up  the  big  dining-room,  she  said ;  and  after  that  she  gave 
up  her  usual  winter  sitting-room  to  them,  and  Deed  often 
wrote  or  read  there  while  Margaret  sewed.  The  hotel 
was  set  on  a  high  hill  above  the  town,  and  the  windows 
of  this  room  commanded  an  extraordinary  prospect  of  the 
snow-covered  mountains  rising  on  the  other  side  of  the 
narrow  valley.  They  called  it  a  valley  in  the  town,  but  it 
was,  in  fact,  more  like  a  slit  in  the  hills,  which  plunged 
precipitously  down  on  each  side,  fronting  each  other  at  a 
distance  of  less  than  half  a  mile. 

They  had  stopped  at  Mineral  Springs  for  the  night, 
on  the  way  to  Burro  Peak  City,  where  Deed  hoped  to  sell 
the  "  Lady  Bountiful."  Deed  had  not  meant  to  take 
Margaret  on,  but  to  leave  her  at  the  hotel  for  the  necessary 
day  or  two  until  his  return.  Then,  he  hud  said,  they 
could  remain  at  Mineral  Springs,  or  go  on  to  another 
place  to  spend  the  remainder  of  their  honeymoon,  as  she 
liked.  Ah,  yes ;  with  that  money  once  restored  to  the 
bank,  with  that  stock  placed  to  the  credit  of  his  trustee 
account  again,  he  did  not  care  where  they  went.  He  had 
proposed  Mexico  to  Margaret  in  the  anticipatory  relief  of 
having  made  all  that  business  straight,  in  the  relief  of 
feeling  himself  again  in  anticipation  something  more  than 
an  honest  man  by  brevet. 

And  then  the  snow  had  come.  The  way  to  Burro 
Peak  was  blocked  absolutely,  and  he  could  not  even  get 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  297 

back  to  Leadville  to  make  a  struggle  for  his  good  name, 
or  to  face  the  consequences,  if  necessary.  To  Burro  Peak 
not  even  a  post  had  ventured  since  the  storm.  The  drift 
ing  snow  had  buried  the  narrow  trail  along  the  mountain 
sides,  which  men  took  in  midsummer  with  caution,  to  a 
depth  where  only  the  May  sun  would  find  it ;  and  the 
people  at  Burro  Peak  City  who  had  once  wanted  to  buy 
the  "  Lady  Bountiful "  when  Deed  had  refused  to  sell, 
might  as  well  not  have  existed. 

But  it  was  probably  too  late  to  do  any  good  now,  if  he 
could  reach  them ;  he  believed  Barney  Graves,  his  fellow- 
trustee,  would  have  made  the  quarterly  examination  of 
the  affairs  of  the  estate  at  his  usual  time,  and  he  knew 
what  must  happen  then.  Graves  lived  at  Eed  Cliff,  and 
as  he  knew  Deed  to  have  been  chosen  by  Brackett  to  be 
one  of  his  trustees  as  a  lawyer,  while  he  knew  that  he 
himself  had  been  chosen  only  as  a  friend,  it  had  been  his 
custom  to  leave  the  actual  work  connected  with  their 
common  trust  to  Deed.  In  atonement  for  this  seeming 
neglect  of  his  dead  friend's  interest,  it  was  his  habit  to 
come  to  Leadville  quarterly  to  go  over  the  accounts  of  the 
estate  with  Deed,  note  his  investments,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  form,  to  make  a  memorandum  of  the  securities  in  his 
hands.  Deed,  who  had  rather  relished  the  trust,  on  the 
whole,  had  been  able  to  add  largely  to  the  value  of  the 
estate  by  judicious  management  of  the  mining  properties 
forming  part  of  it ;  and  he  recalled  the  satisfaction  with 
which  Graves  had  glanced  over  his  last  quarterly  state 
ment,  with  a  miserable  wonder  as  to  his  present  thoughts. 
He  made  sure  that  Graves  would  have  postponed  the  ex 
amination  when  he  did  not  find  him  at  Leadville,  but  his 
continued  and  unexplained  absence  could  have  had  only 


298  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

one  effect :  it  must  long  since  have  come  to  be  believed  in 
Leadville  that  he  was  dead,  or  that  he  had  intentionally 
disappeared.  In  the  latter  case  the  course  was  obvious, 
notorious ;  the  very  children  knew  it  from  the  newspapers. 
In  a  simpler  state  of  society,  he  said  to  himself,  scornfully, 
when  a  man  disappeared  his  friends  might  imaginably  or 
ganize  a  search  for  him ;  in  his  own  wt>rld  he  knew  very 
well  that  they  examined  his  accounts. 

The  intolerable  simplicity  of  the  barrier  which  with 
held  him  from  even  so  much  as  a  chance  of  making  a  fight 
for  his  reputation,  goaded  him  at  times  beyond  endurance. 
Each  morning  he  waked  to  scan  the  sky  for  signs  of  a 
thaw,  and  each  night  cursed  the  royal  setting  of  the  sun, 
which  had  shone  through  all  the  day  without  diminish 
ing  the  snow.  Sometimes,  in  his  walks  with  Margaret 
through  the  town,  or  out  to  the  springs  on  the  hill  near 
their  hotel,  he  would  gather  up  a  handful  of  the  spark 
ling,  fluffy,  almost  ethereal  flakes  which  held  him  prisoner, 
staring  at  them  in  contempt,  and  flinging  them  away  at 
last  with  a  helpless  shrug. 

What  he  had  done  had  seemed  innocent  to  him,  and 
at  worst  it  was  a  potential  wrong ;  the  remorseless  snow 
and  the  unwilling  sun  were  making  it  a  crime,  day  by  day. 

Margaret  saw  that  he  was  troubled,  and  was  grieved 
for  him,  but  it  was  because  of  the  chagrin  of  which  she 
knew — the  chagrin  which  was  cause  enough,  it  seemed- to 
her,  for  any  sickness  of  heart.  She  comforted  him  as  she 
could  about  Jasper  and  Philip  (she  had,  of  course,  Deed's 
version  of  the  difference  between  Philip  and  himself),  but 
she  knew  that  trouble  to  be  beyond  any  one's  consolation. 
The  double  faithlessness  and  ingratitude,  the  sudden  and 
absolute  loss  of  both  his  sons,  represented  a  pain  to  Mar- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  299 

garet  which  she  dared  scarcely  approach ;  she  felt  that 
she  could  not  understand  it.  It  was  all  that  she  thought 
it ;  and  even  in  the  face  of  the  haunting  fear  which  now 
lived  in  him,  it  had  its  way  with  his  heart.  He  was  some 
times  almost  grateful  for  that  other  trouble,  which  was  at 
least  superior  in  its  immediacy,  and  claimed  a  part  of  the 
thoughts  which  must  otherwise,  it  seemed  to  him,  have 
destroyed  him.  With  the  black  misery  of  his  real  trouble 
— the  thought  of  Jasper  and  Philip — he  got  along,  for  the 
most  part,  as  strong  men  do  with  the  grief  of  death.  He 
said  nothing,  and  ground  his  teeth,  and  did  not  suffer 
the  less. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  Margaret's  presence,  and  for 
the  happiness  of  their  new  relation,  he  must  have  been 
utterly  overthrown.  She  helped  him  not  only  by  her 
love,  her  kindness,  her  unfailing  watchfulness,  care,  and 
sympathy,  but  in  unconscious  ways  which  she  did  not 
suspect.  When  she  perceived  that  his  sadness  and  ab 
straction  persisted,  she  began  to  charge  herself  partly 
with  it,  in  her  own  way — accusing  herself  of  not  know 
ing  what  to  do  for  him — believing  that  another  woman 
would  have  known  how  to  comfort  him.  She  tried  not 
to  let  him  see  that  she  was  searching  her  conscience  for 
grounds  of  offence,  but  Deed  surprised  her  in  it,  and 
blamed  himself.  After  that  he  joked  her  steadily,  as  of 
old,  and  maintained  before  her  always  a  gaiety  of  de 
meanor  which  finally  almost  helped  him  to  forget  the 
gulf  at  the  edge  of  which  he  was  living,  even  if  he  could 
not  put  away  from  him  the  corroding  thought  of  his 
faithless  boys. 

When  the  fatality  which  lurked  at  his  side  like  a 
shadow  would  take  form  before  him,  in  spite  of  all  the 


300  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

resources  by  which  he  denied  its  existence,  he  usually  saw 
himself  in  the  newspapers.  He  saw  in  shuddering  fancy 
his  "  case  " — it  would  become  his  case  at  once — treated  in 
the  usual  newspaper  fashion,  picturesquely,  lamentingly, 
speculatively,  mock-sympathetically,  high- virtuously,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it.  Then  the  State  would  have  its  wonder 
at  this  latest  stainless  name  in  the  dust,  and  would  have 
its  talk,  in  which  it  would  recognize  the  entire  and  cheer 
ing  fallibility  of  every  one  else  in  a  world  where  one 
couldn't  be  as  straight  as  one  would  like.  His  enemies 
would  enjoy  the  realization  of  their  prophecies,  while  his 
friends — ah,  his  friends ! — he  could  not  bear  that  thought. 
When  it  occurred  to  him,  he  would  fall  to  teasing  Mar 
garet  about  something.  They  had  discovered  together  an 
infinite  number  of  points  at  which  she  could  be  teased, 
Margaret  even  learning  to  enjoy  the  exploration  of  her 
seriousness  with  him. 

She  felt  that  she  owed  him  this ;  and  she  encouraged 
him  to  joke  the  seriousness  which  had  come  so  near  to 
wrecking  their  happiness,  as  a  kind  of  expiation.  It  had 
also  the  advantage  of  being  a  refuge  from  the  chivalrous 
gentleness  and  humbleness  in  which  he  now  sued  silently 
for  her  forgiveness.  She  could  not  bear  that  he  should 
humiliate  himself  before  her,  as  she  had  once  said  coldly 
to  herself  that  he  must ;  if  there  was  any  forgiving  to  be 
done,  he  must  do  it.  She  felt  blessed  in  being  forgiven, 
even  if  he  had  been  at  fault;  she  found  it  an  odious 
attitude,  as  a  wife,  to  be  brought  to  book,  and  forced  to 
forgive  him. 

For  the  most  part  they  did  not  even  impliedly  discuss 
the  question  which  had  separated  them,  and  had  gone  so 
near  to  parting  them  permanently.  In  the  happiness  of 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  301 

possessing  each  other,  they  could  not  wish  to  go  back  and 
live  that  nightmare-time  over  again,  even  in  imagination ; 
and  it  recurred  as  an  actual  question  between  them  only 
when  Deed,  in  their  happiest  moments,  would  question 
his  right  to  such  bliss — to  the  bliss  which  he  had  once 
thrown  away,  and  trampled  underfoot. 

He  made  her  many  promises,  in  moods  like  this,  that 
she  should  never  know  him  again  in  the  convulsions  of 
passion  which  snatched  him  away  from  himself,  and  left 
him  to  do  any  evil — the  nearest,  the  readiest — in  the 
devil's  mind  which  then  replaced  his  own.  Margaret 
would  not  let  him  talk  of  such  things  for  long ;  and  she 
would  not  suffer  him  to  reproach  himself  since  the  hour 
at  the  hotel  at  Leadville  when  he  had  done  penance  be 
fore  her  in  an  abasement  which  would  have  satisfied  even 
Beatrice. 

In  the  long  evenings  they  played  at  cribbage  or 
bezique,  or,  less  often,  at  chess.  Chess  was  Margaret's 
favourite  game ;  but  seeing  that  Deed  lacked  patience  for 
it,  and  pretended  a  pleasure  in  it  only  for  her  sake,  she 
would  not  let  him  suffer  at  it,  but  won  him  back  to  the 
lighter  diversions  in  which  his  lighter  spirit  expanded. 
Sometimes  they  would  set  the  cards  and  the  board  before 
them  for  cribbage,  and  fall  to  talking,  and  forget,  until 
the  evening  was  over,  that  they  had  meant  to  play.  Deed 
made  her  tell  him,  at  these  times,  of  her  travels. 

In  the  absolute  confidence  of  their  new  relation,  it 
was  a  curious  pleasure  to  her  to  tell  many  things  which 
she  had  hidden  away  in  her  soul  as  things  impossible  to 
tell  any  one.  The  budget  of  her  adventures  in  the  roam 
ing  life  she  had  led  before  she  met  him,  and  even  after, 
seemed  exhaustless,  and  Deed  was  constantly  calling  for 


302  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

more.  He  roared  with  delight  at  the  follies  she  con 
fessed,  the  gaucheries  she  owned  up  to.  He  said  it  was 
a  new  revelation  of  her — this  history  of  her  independence. 
He  urged  her  to  admit  that  she  had  lost  by  the  exchange ; 
he  said  that  she  had  sold  herself  into  slavery ;  he  didn't 
see  how  she  contented  herself. 

"  Don't  you?"  she  said,  letting  her  eyes  rest  on  him  a 
moment. 

"  No,"  he  said  promptly.  He  leaned  towards  her  and 
took  her  hand. 

"  Why,  James,  that's  just  it !  Neither  do  I !  .  But 
you  see  I  do  content  myself.  I'm  not  planning  an  es 
cape  ;  I'm  not  thinking  of  running  away." 

"  Oh,  that's  the  snow,"  he  said.     "  You  couldn't." 

"  No ;  that's  true.  But  you'll  see  when  it  thaws.  It 
will  be  the  same."  She  said  this  earnestly.  Even  when 
she  let  herself  go,  Margaret  held  on  a  little. 

"Ah,  you  say  so.  That's  like  the  bird  that  never 
shows  a  wish  for  the  old  freedom  until  you  open  his  cage. 
Then — whisk  !  And  away  he  goes !  Margaret,"  he  said 
seriously,  "  don't  you  sometimes — just  a  little  bit — catch 
yourself  longing  for  the  old,  free  life?  You  remember 
your  hesitation  about  marriage,  and  how  you  came  and 
held  back,  and  consented  and  refused,  and  ran  away  and 
took  refuge  in  your  wretched  idea  of  independence,  and 
sometimes  wouldn't  so  much  as  look  out  to  take  a  peep. 
Occasionally  I  used  to  think  that  you  actually  feared  a 
future  in  which  you  wouldn't  be  allowed  to  take  care  of 
yourself." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  she  said.  "  I  know.  It  was  so.  And 
now  I  like  to  be  taken  care  of."  She  nestled  up  against 
him.  "  I  like  not  to  be  free.  I  enjoy  being  ^e-pendent ! 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  303 

Oh,  I  was  foolish  !  "  she  whispered.  "  It  seemed  right — 
that  life  I  was  leading.  It  seemed  good  and  natural. 
But  it  wasn't.  This  is  right ! "  She  looked  up  at  him. 

Their  love  was  good  to  them,  and  not  the  less  good 
because  they  won  from  it  the  sane  and  tempered  bliss  of  a 
man  and  woman  past  the  dithyrambic  joys  of  first  youth. 
They  had  been  parted  by  such  a  difference  as  might  have 
risen  between  the  hottest-blooded  pair  of  young  lovers 
who  ever  cried  off  with  each  other  over  a  ribbon  or  a 
photograph ;  and  they  had  come  together  no  less  eagerly 
and  gladly,  in  the  young-lover  manner,  as  if  nothing  had 
ever  .been  between  them.  But  now  that  they  had  each 
other,  their  happiness  was  the  quiet,  full-bodied  content 
of  the  long-married.  To  have  surprised  the  glance  of 
serene  trust  that  would  pass  between  them  when  their 
eyes  met,  to  see  the  unafraid  tenderness  which  had  come 
to  Margaret  since  her  marriage,  to  see  her  lay  her  hand 
on  his,  or  stoop  to  press  a  fleet  kiss  on  his  forehead,  as 
she  passed  him  during  the  day  upon  her  errands  from 
place  to  place,  would  have  been  to  be  taught  a  great  kind 
ness  for  the  marriage  state. 

If  he  could  have  escaped  the  pain  about  his  boys, 
which  was  always  by  him,  and  could  have  banished  the 
threat  hanging  over  him,  Deed  might  have  been  continu 
ously  happy.  As  it  was,  he  was  very  happy  when  he 
could  forget ;  and  Margaret,  who  had  nothing  to  forget 
save  her  permanent  trouble  about  his  act  against  Jasper, 
of  which  she  forbade  herself  to  speak,  was  exaltedly 
happy. 

They  went  upon  walks  within  the  valley  over  the 
beaten  snow,  where  paths  had  been  cut,  amusing  them 
selves  in  the  town  by  the  sight  of  the  entombed  houses 
20 


304  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

sending  up  a  pathetic  slip  of  chimney  into  the  air,  out  of 
which  the  smoke  curled  steadily.  They  liked,  too,  to  see 
the  nimble  householder  come  out  of  his  home  through  the 
roof,  using  the  aperture  prepared  for  such  emergencies  in 
building  mountain  houses.  Once  they  went  down  at 
night  and  watched  from  the  snow,  ten  feet  above  the  side 
walk,  the  crowd  which  gathered  nightly  at  "  Mulvaney's  " 
to  hazard  their  earnings  at  faro  and  poker.  Margaret 
disapproved  of  it,  even  as  a  spectacle ;  but  she  listened 
when  her  husband  told  her  how,  the  night  Philip  had 
maddened  him,  he  had  gone  to  Pop  Wyman's  and  lost  a 
thousand  dollars  in  an  hour.  He  did  not  tell  her  how  he 
had  settled  with  Philip,  of  course ;  that  might  have  in 
volved  the  other. 

The  path  to  the  springs,  which  gave  the  town  its 
name  and  part  of  its  prosperity,  was  one  of  their  favourite 
walks.  It  ran  along  the  mountain-side  on  which  the 
hotel  itself  hung ;  but  the  spot  at  which  the  water  bubbled 
warm  out  of  the  earth,  and  spread  itself  steamingly  about, 
commanded  an  even  opener  prospect  of  the  hills  than 
they  got  from  their  window;  and  they  were  fond  of 
coming  here  at  sunset,  to  watch  the  great  disk  go  palpably 
down  behind  the  summit  of  White  Face,  scorching  the 
snowy  ridge  with  colour. 

The  sun  had  set  and  left  the  air  chill,  and  the  evening 
was  suddenly  grey,  as  they  turned  one  day  from  this  spec 
tacle,  conferring  pensively  on  their  happiness,  as  people 
will  who  can  keep  their  happiness  at  this  hour.  They 
saw  the  figure  of  a  man  coming  towards  them  along  the 
path,  and  began  to  abuse  him  to  each  other  for  poaching 
on  the  solitude.  Then  they  saw  it  was  Jasper. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  305 


XXL 

As  Philip's  train  felt  its  way  cautiously  down  out  of 
the  mountains  into  Lone  Creek  Valley,  on  his  return  from 
Pinon  some  days  after  this,  he  was  hoping  that  he  should 
find  Jasper  well  enough  to  see  him.  He  meant  to  seek 
him  at  once  011  his  arrival  at  Maverick,  and  to  give  up 
the  "  Little  Cipher  "  to  him.  He  had  boftx>wed  the  mine 
from  him,  when  he  found  it  served  his  purpose,  with  the 
thought  that  Jasper  had  left  it  with  him  for  a  year,  and 
could  probably  spare  it  to  him  for  another  week  or  two ; 
and  to  himself  had  added  that,  if  he  couldn't,  he  didn't 
care.  It  was  the  first  good  the  mine  had  ever  done  him, 
and  it  was  certain  to  be  the  last.  He  took  what  advan 
tage  there  was  in  the  attribution  of  proprietorship  during 
the  ten  days  he  remained  at  Pinon,  reminding  himself 
smilingly  that  he  might  considerably  lengthen  his  tenure 
of  the  "  Little  Cipher,"  and  still  leave  a  good  balance  on 
the  credit  side  of  his  account  with  Jasper. 

But,  as  he  drew  near  Maverick,  he  was  seized  with  the 
desire  to  have  the  thing  immediately  off  his  hands.  He 
did  not  like  the  suggestions  that  were  bred  of  this  seem 
ing  ownership ;  and  since  the  bitterness  of  giving  up  his 
find  to  Jasper  must  come,  he  wished  to  have  the  business 
of  the  surrender  over. 

Philip's  habitual  choice  of  the  comfortable  issue  from 
a  difficulty  sometimes  led  him  (out  of  mere  need  for  an 
untroubled  mind)  to  march  up  to  troubles  which  he 
loathed  and  feared  with  an  unintentional  effect  of  hero 
ism.  The  idea  of  turning  over  to  Jasper  the  mine  he  had 
discovered,  staked  out,  and  worked,  was  galling  enough  to 


306  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

be  more  comfortable  as  an  accomplished  fact  than  he  could 
hope  to  make  it  as  a  prospect. 

Now,  too,  that  he  knew  what  the  surrender  meant, 
since  he  had  seen  for  himself  the  possibilities  of  this  mine 
which  he  and  Cutter  and  Vertner  had  made  a  jest  of,  the 
splendour  of  the  prospect  would  sometimes  thrust  itself 
luminously  before  his  eyes,  in  empty  moments  when  he 
would  let  his  gaze  wander  from  the  plain  fact  of  Jasper's 
right  to  the  "  Little  Cipher." 

The  ease  with  which  he  had,  for  the  moment,  reaped, 
without  his  will,  the  advantages  of  ownership  at  Pifion, 
polluted,  every  little  while,  'the  wholesome  current  of  'his 
thoughts.  He  put  the  fantasy  from  him,  when  it  would 
recur,  with  the  sense  that  he  could  not  be  well ;  it  was  in 
this  way  that  murderous  aberrations  and  the  lunacy  of 
suicide  assailed  men.  And  yet  there  would  return  upon 
him  that  air-born  phantom  of  a  thought,  that  the  fiction 
of  his  ownership,  which  had  lasted  a  week,  needed  no 
motion  on  his  part  to  make  it  permanent ;  that  he  had 
only  to  keep  silence. 

The  arrangement  by  which  he  had  carried  on  the  two 
mines  in  his  own  name  lost  its  old  naturalness  as  he  found 
himself  wishing  heartily  that  Jasper  had  always  known 
which  mine  was  his,  or,  at  all  events,  that  some  one  per 
son — only  one — knew  at  this  moment  which  was  his,  be 
sides  himself.  He  could  easily  have  told  Cutter  in  the 
Pifion  days ;  but  he  wasn't  protecting  himself  against  him 
self  in  those  days,  and  he  shouldn't  tell  him  now.  He 
could  fancy  even  Cutter,  with  all  his  right-mindedness, 
palliating  the  obvious  facts  of  the  situation,  or  diminish 
ing  his  clear  obligation.  The  person  he  wished  to  tell, 
now,  was  Jasper.  He  could  be  depended  on  not  to  dimin- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  307 

ish  the  obligation.  He  would  demand  an  account  of  every 
penny  he  had  expended  on  the  "  Little  Cipher  "  since  the 
first  pick  was  driven  into  the  claim  ;  and  would  ask  for 
any  stray  bits  of  silver  he  might  have  brought  away  in 
his  pockets.  Jasper  knew  his  rights.  That  he  (Philip) 
had  staked  out  both  claims  in  the  beginning  as  his  own, 
was  nothing.  That  he  had  mentally  turned  over  the 
"  Little  Cipher  "  to  his  brother  when  Jasper  had  written 
asking  him  to  see  what  a  "  flier  "  of  $500  would  do  for 
him  on  Mineral  Hill,  was  all  that  would  interest  Jasper. 
Bless  you !  he  wouldn't  care  for  the  registry  at  the  Land 
Office.  If  it  had  been  the  other  way  about,  there  might 
be  some  sense  in  showing  by  the  Land  Office  books,  the 
advertisements,  and  all  that,  that  only  one  name  had  ap 
peared  in  all  the  transaction,  and  that,  legally,  the  two 
mines  belonged  to  one  person.  But,  in  the  present  situa 
tion,  Philip's  mental  cession  of  the  "  Little  Cipher "  to 
him  plainly  settled  the  question.  Jasper  couldn't  care  to 
"  go  behind  the  returns,"  Philip  said  to  himself,  with  a 
curl  of  his  lip,  as  the  spire  of  St.  John's  in  the  Wilderness 
came  in  sight,  and  he  began  to  get  his  hand-luggage  to 
gether. 

The  sight  of  the  church  recalled  Dorothy  to  his  mind, 
from  which,  in  fact,  she  had  never  been  absent  since  the 
memorable  day  of  their  last  interview;  and  he  said  to 
himself  that  it  was  because  he  was  unhappy,  not  because 
he  was  unwell,  that  the  vile  thought  of  the  simple,  the 
fluidly  simple,  course  open  to  him  dared  dance  about  him 
beckoningly.  If  he  had  not  wrecked  himself  with  her,  if 
he  could  think  she  could  ever  care  for  him,  his  normal  state 
of  cheerful  spiritual  health  would  come  back  to  him,  and 
such  thoughts  must  find  their  proper  place  as  nightmares. 


308  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  0  Dorothy  !  Dorothy  !  "  he  caught  himself  crying 
inwardly.  "  Can't  you  see  that  I  must  have  you  !  Can't 
you  see  that  I  can't  live  without  you  ! " 

As  he  left  the  train  at  the  Maverick  station,  and  went 
into  the  hotel,  which  stood  on  a  level  with  the  station 
platform,  overlooking  the  arriving  and  departing  trains, 
he  met  Maurice  at  the  door,  coming  out. 

Maurice's  round,  handsome  face,  which  we  know  found 
a  smile  readily  when  the  occasion  seemed  worthy  of  it, 
wrinkled  into  a  beaming  smile  of  welcome  for  Philip.  He 
offered  him  his  large,  fair,  fat  hand. 

"  Why,  my  dear  boy ! "  he  exclaimed  in  his  mellifluous 
accents.  "  Just  returned,  are  you  ?  "  with  a  glance  at  the 
traps  Philip  was  carrying  in  his  hand.  "  It's  good  to  see 
you  again.  It's  a  long  time  since  you've  let  us  have  a 
glimpse  of  you.  Oh,  I  know,  I  know  ! "  he  exclaimed  at 
Philip's  deprecatory  beginning.  "  We've  been  hearing  of 
your  doings."  Maurice  spoke  with  a  benevolent  smile. 
Philip  wondered  what  he  meant.  He  made  a  motion  to 
walk  by  Maurice,  whose  considerable  bulk  blocked  the 
narrow  hotel  entrance,  with  the  purpose  of  depositing  his 
luggage  with  the  clerk  of  the  hotel,  whom  he  knew.  But 
Maurice  laid  a  fatherly  hand  upon  his  shoulder.  "  Don't 
do  that.  You  are  going  on  to  the  '  Snow  Find '  in  the 
course  of  the  afternoon,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  No,"  returned  Philip,  abruptly  ;  "  I'm  not.  I  am 
going  on  to  '  The  Triangle '  to  see  my  brother." 

"  Oh,  indeed.  He  left  town  a  few  days  ago,  to  be  gone 
a  week  ;  so  that  what  I  was  about  to  ask  you  to  do  holds 
good,"  he  went  on,  without  pausing  to  observe  Philip's 
agitation.  "  You  will  be  going  on  to  your  mine  later  in 
the  day,  as  you  can't  see  your  brother,  and  you  must  come 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  309 

on  to  the  house,  and  lunch  with  us,  and  take  on  your 
things  from  there." 

"  Why — "  began  Philip,  confused  and  baffled  by  the 
news  of  Jasper's  departure,  and  at  a  loss  to  understand 
Maurice's  sudden  warmth.  This  had  hardly  been  his  tone 
at  their  last  meeting.  Philip  was  about  to  say  something 
which  would  have  implied  that  Maurice  was  presuming 
on  a  relation  between  them  which  did  not  exist,  when  his 
companion  broke  in  with  : 

"  Ah,  that's  good  !  I  hoped  you  would.  Well,  that's 
settled,  then.  You  will  want  to  get  rid  of  the  railway 
grime.  We  will  go  right  on  to  the  house,  if  you  like.  I 
was  just  returning  home  from  some  parish  calls  at  the 
hotel.  You  know  Mrs.  Montgomery  Bolton  ?  " 

Philip  said  he  had  seen  her,  as  he  walked  on  by 
Maurice's  side,  dazed  and  irresolute.  He  wished  to  see 
Dorothy,  of  course ;  would  he  not  be  a  fool  to  quarrel 
with  his  luck  ;  would  he  not  be  twice  a  fool  to  demand 
of  Destiny,  in  Maurice's  shape,  the  cause  of  this  tempo 
rary  amiability  ?  He  could  have  laughed,  if  he  had  been 
in  a  mood  to  laugh  at  anything,  at  the  recollection  of 
Maurice's  cold  and  formal  greeting  at  their  last  encounter. 
What  intention  towards  him,'  what  hope  of  service  from 
him,  was  in  the  clergyman's  mind  ? 


XXII. 


MAUEICE  did  not  leave  him  long  in  doubt.  He  con 
gratulated  him  on  his  "  strike  "  in  the  "  Little  Cipher," 
using  the  slang.  He  had  heard  of  it  from  Cutter,  he  said. 
Was  the  assay  as  large  as  Cutter  said  ? 


310  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

Philip  had  begun  to  hate  the  word  "  strike,"  and  in 
his  loathing  for  the  congratulations  which  had  pursued 
him  since  the  first  day,  he  was  much  further  gone.  The 
very  conductor  of  his  train  from  Bayles's  Park  had  wanted 
to  smoke  a  cigar  with  him  on  the  strength  of  his  strike. 
He  had  ceased  to  start  at  these  felicitations,  but  they  were 
irritating.  If  anything  could  have  increased  his  grudge 
against  Jasper  for  being  the  man  to  whom  he  must  sur 
render  the  "  Little  Cipher,"  it  would  have  been  that  the 
circumstances  of  the  case  were  things  that  one  couldn't 
explain  to  a  man  who  wanted  to  smoke  a  cigar  with  you. 
It  was  a  fact,  if  any  one  liked  to  put  it  in  that  way,  that 
he  was  turning  over  to  his  brother  a  mine  to  which  Jasper 
had  no  claim  save  such  as  existed  in  one  conscience  ;  but 
it  wasn't  the  sort  of  fact  that  one  could  mention  as  one 
observes  that  it  rains. 

It  was  impossible — he  said  this  to  himself  when  he 
found  that  he  was  not  denying  Maurice's  congratulations 
in  the  first  instant  of  hearing  them — that  he  should  ex 
pose  his  motives  to  the  comment  of  every  mind  he  met 
on  his  way  to  Jasper.  It  wasn't  decent ;  and,  at  all  events, 
would  be  intolerable.  Yet  in  the  next  moment  he  saw 
that  he  must  tell  Maurice,  though  he  was  the  last  man  to 
whose  eye  he  should  care  to  submit  the  spectacle  of  his 
moral  processes.  The  moment  lengthened,  however,  and 
he  did  not  tell  him. 

As  the  gate  slammed  behind  them,  and  they  stood  in 
Maurice's  front  yard,  Philip  felt  again  that  he  must  speak. 
It  came  upon  him  with  renewed  force  that  Maurice  had  a 
right  to  know,  and  that  he  would  be  wronging  him  in 
keeping  silence.  Maurice  stood  in  an  entirely  different 
relation  to  the  fact  from  any  one  else  he  had  met  since  he 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  311 

knew  it  himself.  To  keep  silence  in  Pifion,  or  before  his 
conductor,  might  Le  a  matter  of  taste ;  but  not  to  tell 
Maurice  was  a  kind  of  fraud,  perhaps. 

He  had  opened  his  lips  on  the  door-step,  with  no  no 
tion  of  the  way  in  which  he  should  begin,  when  Dorothy 
appeared  at  the  bay  window,  which  jutted  out  into  her 
flower-bed  in  the  yard.  Philip  had  a  vision  of  a  black 
skirt,  and  an  electric  blue  blouse  on  amiable  terms  with 
the  fair  face  above  it.  She  waved  her  hand  gaily  to  her 
father  with  a  gesture  in  which  Philip  might  include  him 
self  or  not,  as  he  liked.  It  seemed  a  very  long  time  since 
they  had  spoken  together ;  it  was  a  fortnight  since  he  had 
seen  her.  The  apparition  at  the  window  filled  all  his 
senses.  He  did  not  go  on  with  what  he  was  saying. 

The  stainless  white  brow  of  Ouray,  visible  from  the 
door-step,  fantastically  seemed  to  be  wrinkling  itself  in 
reproach  as  he  went  in  with  Maurice. 

Maurice  opened  the  door  into  the  parlour  far  enough 
to  say  to  Dorothy  that  Mr.  Deed  would  stay  to  luncheon 
with  them,  and  to  ask  when  it  would  be  ready ;  and  then 
led  the  way  up-stairs  to  his  own  bedchamber,  where  Philip 
got  rid  of  the  railway  dust,  and  did  what  he  could  by  way 
of  freshening  the  effect  of  the  miner's  dress  in  which  he 
had  hastily  set  out  for  Pinon,  a  fortnight  before,  lacking 
one  day.  •  He  wondered  how  she  would  receive  him.  He 
braced  himself  for  the  reception,  which  he  feared,  and 
which  he  felt  he  had  probably  earned. 

She  received  him,  however, — as  he  might  have  guessed, 
— as  a  hostess,  not  as  a  woman.  Her  expressionless  cor 
diality,  her  meaningless  courtesy,  daunted  him.  He  would 
rather  have  been  snubbed  outright.  Her  father,  who  had 
taken  up  his  stand  with  his  back  to  the  wood  fire  in  the 


312  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

grate,  smiled  on  the  meeting.  A  moment  later  he  was 
called  from  the  room  by  information  from  the  servant! 
that  his  sexton,  Sandy  Dikes,  was  waiting  to  speak  with 
him. 

"  Miss  Maurice — "  began  Philip,  entreatingly,  as  the 
door  closed  behind  her  father. 

She  stopped  him  to  ask  if  the  room  was  not  too  hot 
for  him.  Philip  was  going  hot  and  cold  by  turns,  but 
the  temperature  was  not  at  fault.  He  said  it  was  not  too 
hot  for  him,  unless —  "  Oh,  no,"  she  said,  shaking  her 
head. 

Her  smooth  tones,  her  conventional  smile  of  good -so 
ciety,  began  to  madden  Philip.  He  felt  like  an  unprac 
tised  skater  slipping  impotently  about  on  new  ice. 

The  passive  role  assigned  to  women,  which  puts  them 
under  so  many  disadvantages,  certainly  has  its  moments 
of  triumph.  Philip  wondered  if  women  must  always  use 
them  as  cruelly  as  Dorothy  was  using  them,  out  of  a  will 
ingness  to  avenge  themselves  on  the  other  moments  of 
helplessness  to  which  the  role  condemns  them. 

At  last  he  looked  into  her  eyes,  and  asked,  without 
preface,  "  Is  there  boiling  oil  in  all  your  punishments, 
Miss  Maurice  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  returned  politely,  with  the  same 
glittering  and  correct  effect  of  having  said  nothing. 

"  Because  if  I  might  choose  the  quality  of  my  mercy, 
I  should  like  it  strained.  I  suppose  I  am  not  worthy  of 
the  unstrained.  At  all  events,  the  steady  drip,  drip  of  it 
doesn't  soothe  me  as  it  ought  to.  Please  strain  your 
mercy,  Miss  Maurice.  What  I  need,  I  see,  is  open  cru 
elty." 

She  stared  at  him  a  moment,  in  doubt  how  she  should 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  313 

answer  this.  "  I  am  glad  you  think  that,"  she  said  seri 
ously,  at  last.  "  But  you  must  look  to  some  one  else 
for  it." 

"  You  mean  that  it  is  enough  to  have  deserved  such  a 
punishment  from  a  person  without  asking  her  to  be  at  the 
pains  of  administering  it  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  are  much  in  the  wrong." 

This  time  there  was  no  mistaking  her  earnestness. 
"  Good  heavens,  Miss  Maurice !  have  I  been  guilty  of 
other  crimes  besides  those  I  know  ?  "  He  paused  nerv 
ously,  observing  to  himself  how  beautiful  she  was  in  the 
sudden  pallor  for  which  he  blamed  himself.  The  fair  hair 
curling  spontaneously  about  her  high,  white  brow ;  those 
melting  grey  eyes,  dashed  with  the  whimsical  thread  of 
brown ;  the  delicate  little  mouth,  which  he  had  set 
vaguely  quivering  now ;  the  poise  of  her  exquisite  head — 
seized  him  with  an  irrelevant  and  fruitless  yearning. 

"You  know  best  about  that,"  she  said,  and  he  saw 
she  was  answering  a  question  he  had  forgotten  the  pur 
port  of.  In  an  instant,  however,  he  remembered. 

"0  Miss  Maurice,"  he  cried,  "are  you  fair?  I  give 
you  my  word  I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  of,  un 
less  you  are  still  thinking  of  the  wickedness  I  know  of ; 
and  I  can't  believe  that  it's  only  that." 

"  No  ;  it  isn't  that,"  she  told  him,  a  little  wearily. 

"  Is  it  any  tiling  to  do  with  that — with  my  brother  ?  " 
he  asked  desperately. 

"  Yes." 

"  I  might  have  known  it !  Well,  what,  Miss  Mau 
rice  ?  "  he  demanded,  in  unconscious  rudeness.  "  I  have 
borne  pretty  much  all  I  am  able  from  Jasper.  Has  he 
been  telling  you  how  I  have  wronged  him  ?  " 


314  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Do  you  think  that  would  be  like  your  brother  ? " 
asked  Dorothy,  with  an  implication  in  her  voice  which 
nettled  Philip  beyond  control. 

"  No ;  I  don't,  Miss  Maurice.  He  probably  told  you 
how  finely  I  have  been  behaving  towards  him,  and  you 
guessed  the  other  thing  from  a  combination  of  your 
knowledge  of  me,  and  your  certainty  that  Jasper  would 
always  have  a  chivalrous  word  for  his  enemy." 

"  Now  it  is  you  who  are  not  fair,"  she  rejoined. 

"  I  don't  mean  to  be  unfair,"  he  said,  and  there  he 
stopped.  "  Did  he  tell  you  of  his  visit  to  the  '  Snow 
Find  ?  '"  he  asked  suddenly.  "  Is  that  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  returned  tremulously.  "  I  guessed  it ;  I 
forced  it  from  him  ;  I  surprised  his  confidence.  And, 
after  all,  he  would  tell  me  nothing ;  I  would  not  let  him 
tell  me  anything.  But  I  understood." 

"  Ah,"  exclaimed  Philip,  bitterly,  "  you  understood  ! " 

She  rose  haughtily.     He  saw  that  he  had  gone  too  far. 

"  Oh,  I  am  abominably  rude  !  Pardon  me — or,  don't 
pardon  me ;  tell  me  to  go.  But  if  you  knew,  Miss  Mau 
rice—" 

"Tell  me,"  she  begged.  She  put  forth  her  hand. 
Philip  seized  it,  and  dropped  it  instantly.  He  turned 
away. 

"  No,  no ;  I  can't,"  he  cried.  "  Somebody  ought  to 
tell  you,  perhaps.  But  I  can't.  It  isn't — it  isn't  de 
cent."  He  clasped  his  arms  despairingly  behind  his 
shaggy  head  as  he  walked  from  her  towards  the  window 
and  stared  out  at  the  long  backbone  of  the  Sangre  de 
Christo  range. 

She  guessed  this  for  the  pride  it  was ;  but  she  had  no 
information  which  could  have  enabled  her  justly  to  esti- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  315 

mate  the  obscure  and  multitudinous  motives  which  made 
it  up,  and  she  was  far  from  guessing  the  Tightness  of  feel 
ing  which  actually  lay  at  the  root  of  it. 

"  But  there  is  something  I  can  tell  you,  Miss  Maurice," 
he  said,  turning  suddenly,  with  a  new  light  in  his  eyes 
which  awed  her.  She  shrank  from  him,  and  sat  down 
hastily.  "  Perhaps  it  will  explain  for  me — not  this  pre 
cisely,  but  everything ;  and  if  it  explains  nothing,  why  I 
shall  be  content  that  you  should  not  understand  my  rela 
tion  to  Jasper,  either,  because  nothing  will  matter  then. 
I  have  no  right  to  tell  it  to  you,  though  you  have  a  right 
to  know  it.  But  I  can't  tell  you  unless  you  promise  me 
to  understand  that  it  asks  nothing  of  you,  that  it  has  no 
relation  to  you  except  as  your  knowledge  of  it  may  help 
you  to — to  understand —  I  love  you.  That  is  all.  I  love 
you." 

She  dropped  her  eyes. 

"  I  wanted  you  to  know,"  he  said,  in  the  silence  that 
fell. 

"  Yes,"  she  whispered,  in  assent  to  this. 

"  But  I  didn't  want — I  don't  want  the  fact  to  exist  for 
you,  except  as  it  may  help  you  to  think  more  kindly  of 
me ;  to — to  understand."  Philip  believed  that  he  meant 
this.  "  I  have  no  right  to  speak  of  it — and  absolutely  no 
right  to  found  anything  further  on  it."  He  did  not  say 
it  in  the  hope  that  she  would  contradict  him ;  but  a  pang 
shot  through  him  when  she  did  not.  He  should  not  have 
told  her  any  more,  he  said  proudly  to  himself,  whatever 
she  might  have  urged  against  this  statement;  but  her 
silence  whetted  the  pain  at  his  heart.  He  rubbed  the  two 
half-dollars  left  over  from  his  journey  to  Pinon  against 
each  other  in  his  pocket,  and  thought  how  the  actual  oc- 


316  BENEFITS  FOEGOT. 

casion  of  his  forbearance  lacked  dignity ;  it  really  wasn't 
as  noble  as  it  seemed,  perhaps,  for  a  beggar  to  refrain 
from  a  proposal  of  marriage.  When  the  beggar  happened 
to  be  as  much  in  love  as  he,  however,  it  was  hard. 

"  Well,"  he  went  on,  as  she  still  kept  silence,  "  there's 
nothing  more  to  say."  He  came  over  to  her,  and  offered 
his  hand  in  farewell.  "  Good-bye,  Miss  Maurice.  If  you 
ever  give  me  a  thought  after  this,  remember,  please,  that 
whatever  you  have  to  think  of  me,  it  was  in  this  way  that 
I  thought  of  you — that  I  shall  always  think  of  you." 

She  still  said  nothing,  and  he  turned  to  go. 

"But,"  she  called  after  him,  raising  her  head  now, 
with  a  smile  in  which  many  emotions  played,  "  you  are 
going  to  stay  to  luncheon,  Mr.  Deed  ?  " 

He  turned  at  the  fancy  of  a  note  between  roguish  and 
caressing  in  the  sound  of  her  unsteady  voice,  and  started 
towards  her,  withholding  himself  instantly.  Then  he  re 
membered  what  she  had  asked  him,  and  could  have 
smiled  for  the  absurdity  of  his  unhappy  lover  exit  ar 
rested  by  the  banality  of  a  luncheon  engagement. 

"  No — no,  I  mustn't,"  he  found  himself  saying ;  but  he 
heard  the  door-knob  turn  in  Maurice's  firm  clutch,  and 
knew  that  he  must. 

Maurice  came  in  upon  them,  rubbing  his  large  hands 
in  smiling  hospitality,  and  abandoned  the  amiable  com 
monplace  he  had  ready  for  Philip,  to  glance  sharply  at 
the  two.  He  concealed  adroitly  his  sense  of  having  inter 
rupted  an  intimate  collision ;  but  he  followed  them  into 
the  dining-room,  after  having  asked  Philip  to  give  his  arm 
to  Dorothy,  with  a  look  of  grave  satisfaction  on  his  face. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  317 


XXIII. 

THE  luncheon  lagged,  though  it  began  with  salmon, 
and  went  on  to  escalloped  oysters,  to  quail  on  toast,  and 
finally  to  a  California  fruit  that  none  of  them  knew. 
Dorothy  said  she  had  forgotten  its  name ;  it  grew  in  a  tin 
can — like  the  oysters  and  the  salmon.  They  ate,  save 
Maurice,  as  if  the  quality  of  the  luncheon  alone  concerned 
them.  Maurice  talked  beamingly  about  a  host  of  sub 
jects,  in  the  full,  orotund  voice  which  sounded  so  well 
from  the  pulpit.  He  made  all  the  talk.  Philip  was  silent 
and  ill  at  ease ;  Dorothy  answered  her  father  and  kept 
him  going.  She  flushed  when  Philip  once  looked  her 
way.  After  that  they  avoided  each  other's  glances. 

When  they  were  alone  with  their  wine  and  cigarettes, 
— Maurice  kept  up  the  customs  of  a  higher  civilization 
jealously, — the  clergyman  told  Philip  the  history  of  his 
purchase  of  the  claret  he  was  drinking  with  the  delibera 
tion  which  characterized  his  talk.  Philip  writhed  in 
wardly.  He  longed  to  get  away. 

Maurice  seemed  to  have  plenty  of  leisure,  however, 
and  made  no  move  to  rise.  He  left  inviting  gaps  in  the 
conversation  when  he  had  done  his  story  of  the  wine,  as 
if  he  expected  Philip  to  take  it  up,  and  Philip  had  begun 
dimly  to  divine  an  intention  in  this,  when  Maurice  finally 
said  himself : 

"  I  think,  Mr.  Deed,  we  may  deal  with  each  other 
quite  frankly."  He  cleared  his  throat,  caressing  his  wine 
glass  meditatively. 

Philip  bowed  politely  across  the  table,  not  knowing 
what  was  coming,  but  feeling  the  assumption  to  be  a  safe 


318  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

one.  He  had  always  been  on  his  guard  in  his  few  conver 
sations  with  Maurice.  He  did  not  trust  him.  He  found 
himself  constantly  wondering  what  he  was  up  to,  what 
purpose  underlay  the  obvious  meaning  of  the  things  he 
said. 

"  Yes ;  so  I  thought,"  continued  Maurice  in  response 
to  his  nod.  He  offered  him  cigarettes.  Philip  took  one, 
and  struck  a  match.  As  Maurice  lighted  his  own,  he 
glanced  at  his  companion  through  the  smoke,  and  asked, 
as  if  it  were  a  casual  question,  "  May  I  ask  if  I  rightly 
infer  that  you  have  a  more  than  common  regard  for  my 
daughter  ?  " 

Philip  flushed.    He  was  wholly  at  a  loss  for  an  answer. 

"  I  need  not  say  that  it  is  not  to  challenge  such  a  re 
gard  if  it  exists,  nor  to  question  your  action  in  any  way, 
that  I  speak,"  continued  Maurice  in  a  conciliatory  tone, 
anticipating  the  resentment  of  his  inquiry  which  he  began 
to  see  rising  in  Philip's  face.  "  I  should  not  ask  if  I  had 
not  good  reason — the  best  of  reasons.  You  will  quite 
agree  with  me,  I  am  confident,  when  you  understand  what 
they  are.  But  first,  as  to  the  main  question.  I  need  not 
repeat  it  ?  " 

"No,"  said  Philip,  and  was  going  on  angrily,  but 
stopped  himself.  "Yes;  you  are  right.  I  love  Miss 
Maurice." 

He  remembered  that  he  was  talking  to  her  father,  who, 
after  all,  had  an  excellent  right  to  question  him. 

"  Ah  ! "  said  Maurice,  "  I  have  long  believed  as  much. 
May  I  ask — it  is  my  last  question — if  I  am  right  in  sup 
posing  that  you  have  made  Dorothy  aware  of  this  ?  " 

Philip  remembered  the  scene  on  which  the  clergyman 
had  just  come  in.  He  had  hoped  that  it  might  never  be 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  319 

known  to  any  soul ;  least  of  all  did  he  like  to  talk  it  over 
with  Maurice.  But  he  said  helplessly  and  a  little  savagely, 
"  It  is  true.  Yes.  But—" 

"  She  has  refused  you,  then  ?  " 

Philip  frowned.  "  I  don't  know  why  you  assume — " 
he  began. 

"  Mr.  Deed,  we  shall  get  on  in  this  delicate  matter  only 
if  we  understand  quite  clearly  that  I  speak  as  your  friend," 
interrupted  Maurice.  He  sipped  slowly  at  his  claret.  "  I 
know  that  I  may  not  always  have  seemed  so ;  but  I  have 
learned — some  things  have  come  to  my  knowledge." 

Vaguely  and  doubtfully  at  first,  and  then  surely,  Philip 
had  seen  for  himself  that  Maurice's  inclination  toward 
him  was  friendly. 

From  whatever  cause,  out  of  the  coldness  he  had  kept 
for  him  hitherto ;  out  of  the  warm  and  friendly  associa 
tion  with  Jasper  of  which  every  one  in  Maverick  knew ; 
out  of  the  old  liking  for  the  match  broken  off  by  Dorothy, 
which  Philip  suspected  in  him ;  and,  at  all  events,  out  of 
the  open  favour  he  had  lent  the  new  relation  between 
Jasper  and  Dorothy,  this  was  the  issue.  It  was  strange, 
but  he  did  not  doubt  it,  and  if  he  had  doubted  it,  Maurice's 
next  words  must  have  been  convincing. 

"  I  have  heard  the  truth  about  you  and  your  brother, 
and  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  Dorothy  is  still  in  igno 
rance  of  it.  You  are  aware  of  the  feeling  I  have  had 
towards  Jasper.  I  have  liked  him — we  have  liked  him, 
and  Dorothy  still  does.  It  is  because  I  believe  that  Doro 
thy's  proper  understanding  of  some  things,  just  at  this 
moment,  may  deeply  affect  her  future  and  yours,  and — 
mine,  that  I  wish  to  offer  you  a  friendly  word." 

"  You  are  very  good,"  murmured  Philip,  plunging 
21 


320  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

about  in  his  imagination  for  a  final  meaning  beneath 
this. 

"  No.  If  I  am  good,  it  is  to  Dorothy — to  myself. 
You  may  believe  that  I  should  hardly  be  speaking  to  you 
in  this  way  if  it  were  not  of  vital  concern  to  me  that  I 
should." 

He  judged  it  unnecessary  to  enter  with  Philip  into  the 
facts  he  had  lately  learned  regarding  Jasper's  present  ten 
ure  of  the  ranch.  The  injunction  against  Snell  had  be 
come  town  talk  within  two  days  of  Jasper's  departure,  and 
had  set  all  Maverick  agog  for  the  painful  but  interesting 
story  which  must  be  lurking  behind  this  action  of  Jasper's. 
Maurice  had  heard  the  entire  story  from  Cutter,  who  saw 
no  reason  to  withhold  the  truth  when  Maurice  questioned 
him  at  the  post-office  on  the  day  he  heard  the  rumour  of 
the  injunction. 

"  I  shall  speak  plainly,  Mr.  Deed,  for  both  our  sakes," 
the  clergyman  pursued.  "  I  think  it  right  you  should 
know  that  your  brother  has  proposed  to  Dorothy." 

"Jasper ! "  cried  Philip.  He  fronted  Maurice  abrupt 
ly,  perusing  his  face  with  an  estranged  regard. 

"  Have  you  not  known  ?  "  exclaimed  the  clergyman. 

"  Known  I "  repeated  Philip,  with  a  haggard  face. 
"  Yes ;  oh,  yes."  And,  after  a  moment :  "  He  has  offered 
himself.  He  has  been  accepted.  Why  do  you  bring  me 
here  to  tell  me  this  ?  " 

"  He  has  offered  himself,"  assented  Maurice,  passing 
over  Philip's  tone  with  dignity,  "  but  he  has  not  been  ac 
cepted.  Dorothy  has  promised  him  his  answer  within  a 
week.  The  week  will  be  at  an  end  to-morrow."  Philip 
opened  his  lips  with  a  passionate  impulse,  but  swallowed 
back  his  words,  grinding  his  teeth.  "  What  his  answer 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  321 

shall  be  depends,  as  I  believe,  upon  the  way  in  which  you 
may  receive  what  I  have  to  say." 

"  For  God's  sake,  man,  go  on  !     I'm  listening." 

Philip  bit  his  lip,  and  waited  for  what  might  follow, 
with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  line  of  low-lying  hills  opposite 
Ouray,  which  were  visible  from  the  dining-room  window. 

"  Quietly,  if  you  please,  my  dear  young  sir.  This  mat 
ter,  let  me  remind  you,  concerns  me  at  least  as  much  as 
it  can  concern  you.  Dorothy  is  my  only  daughter.  My 
life  goes  with  her  happiness.  But  we  can  gain  nothing 
by  haste."  Philip  made  an  impatient  gesture  of  apology. 
He  stared  at  Maurice  restlessly,  across  the  table,  with  his 
chin  in  his  hand,  as  he  went  on. 

"  What  I  am  about  to  say,"  continued  the  clergyman, 
"is  most  intimate.  It  touches  a  subject  which  I  had 
hoped  never  to  be  obliged  to  reopen  to  any  person  living. 
Circumstances  have  ruled  otherwise,  and  I  have  now  only 
to  add,  in  disclosing  certain  facts,  that  I  shall  look  to  you 
to  regard  them  as  communicated  under  the  most  sacred 
seal  of  confidence." 

These  cautious  guards  and  defences,  these  precautions 
against  one  knew  not  what,  by  turns  tortured  and  sick 
ened  his  companion.  He  found  his  perception  reeling 
giddily  every  little  while  before  the  clergyman's  abomina 
ble  flow  of  language,  which  seemed  one  sheen  to  him,  like 
the  glaze  on  paper. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  know  precisely  the  cir 
cumstances  attending  my  departure  from  Laughing  Val 
ley  City  ?  "  said  Maurice,  interrogatively.  He  tried  for  a 
parody  of  the  importance  of  the  name  in  his  voice ;  but 
his  anxiety  came  uppermost. 

Philip  turned  towards  him  quickly  and  said :  "  I  am 


322  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

glad  to  have  the  opportunity  of  letting  you  know,  Mr. 
Maurice,  that  I  do  know  rather  more  than  it  seemed  a 
kindness  to  Miss  Maurice  to  mention  in  the  cave  that  day. 
I  have  never  felt  quite  right  about  that.  But  it  seemed 
to  Cutter  and  me  that  she  would  not  care  to  know  that 
we  had  seen  what  passed  on  the  hillside  above  the  canon 
the  day  of  the  storm.  If  I  had  imagined  that  it  could 
make  a  difference  to  you,  I  should  have  spoken  long  ago. 
It  was  Miss  Maurice  who  was  in  my  thoughts,"  he  con 
fessed. 

"  Ah,  I  am  glad  of  that — yes,"  mused  the  clergyman  ; 
"  glad,  because  it  will  help  you  to  understand  a  feeling  of 
mine  about  that — that  circumstance.  I  have  never  told 
Dorothy  the  actual — the  exact  occasion  of  that  scene  on 
the  hillside."  Maurice  leaned  over  towards  Philip,  and 
questioned  his  face  closely.  "  Do  you  know  it  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  No,"  said  Philip. 

"  Ah,  well,  perhaps  that  is  as  well,  too.  You  will  be 
lieve,  when  I  tell  you  this,  that  I  am  concealing  nothing 
from  you.  The  Vigilance  Committee" — he  gave  them 
the  title  with  a  curl  of  his  large,  handsome  lip,  from 
which  he  stroked  away  his  jaunty  mustache — "  thought 
me  in  the  wrong  in  refusing  to  go  and  read  the  funeral 
service  over  two  men  who  had  died  at  Laughing  Valley  of 
smallpox."  Maurice's  face  worked,  and  for  a  moment  he 
did  not  attempt  to  go  on.  "  The  right  or  wrong  of  that 
we  must  leave  to  a  higher  tribunal,"  continued  he,  dis 
missing  the  ethical  question  with  a  gesture.  Philip  shud 
dered.  "  What  immediately  concerns  us  is  that  Dorothy 
has  never  known  why  I  was  forced  to  depart  from  the 
place." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  323 

"  She  must  never  know,"  said  Philip,  huskily.  A 
vicarious  sense  of  shame  for  the  clergyman  would  not  let 
him  lift  his  eyes  to  look  in  his  face. 

"  Exactly.  She  must  never  know.  But  there  is  an 
other  matter  of  which  she  must  not  know." 

He  turned  a  doubtful  eye  on  his  companion  as  he 
paused.  Philip  turned  cold,  wondering  what  worse  thing 
this  man  could  have  done  to  shame  his  daughter. 

"  It  is,  in  a  way,  all  the  same  matter,"  Maurice  was 
saying,  while  his  companion  dumbly  waited  and  wondered. 
Philip  drew  a  breath  of  relief.  "  Information  reached  me 
a  week  since  through  a  good  friend  of  ours — of  hers,  of 
yours ;  in  point  of  fact,  through  Mr.  Messiter,  that — " 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  Is  Mr.  Messiter  back  in  Mav 
erick?  I  heard  that  he  had  returned  to  his  mine  at 
Laughing  Valley." 

"  So  he  has,"  responded  the  clergyman,  with  the  ghost 
of  an  indulgent  smile  for  Philip's  transparent  impulse  of 
jealousy.  "  He  came  here  a  week  ago,  for  the  day  only, 
to  see  me — in  point  of  fact,  to  warn  me.  He  had  heard 
rumors  at  Laughing  Valley  that  some  of  my  enemies 
there  had  been  inciting  the  bishop,  when  he  visited  the 
place  a  fortnight  or  so  back,  to  take  some  action  founded 
on  this—  this  accusation  against  me ;  and  like  the  dear, 
good  fellow  he  is,  knowing  what  that  must  mean  for 
Dorothy,  he  had  posted  down  to  Denver,  without  stop 
ping  to  consult  me,  in  the  hope  of  inducing  the  bishop 
not  to  move  in  the  matter."  Maurice  sighed.  "  It  was 
good  of  him,  but  it  was  useless.  Once  brought  to  the 
ears  of  the  bishop,  I  have  always  known  what  must  hap 
pen."  Philip  saw  the  green  hills  outside  the  window 
swim  before  his  eyes.  "  And — well,  the  end  of  it  is  that 


324  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

I  have  this  morning  a  letter  from  the  bishop — generous 
and  temperate,  even  fatherly,  but  quite  plain — suggesting 
that  it  would  be  convenient  if  I  should  let  him  have  my 
resignation  of  my  charge  here." 

Philip  took  the  letter  he  handed  him,  as  he  started  up 
with  an  inarticulate  groan  on  his  lips.  He  carried  it  to 
the  window,  and  stared  at  it  for  a  moment  helplessly ;  the 
words  refused  to  relate  themselves  to  one  another,  and  he 
finally  turned  and  gave  it  back  to  Maurice,  in  silence. 
The  clergyman  shrank  from  the  look  on  Philip's  face  as 
he  put  forth  his  hand  to  take  the  letter. 

"  Yes,"  owned  he  ;  "  it's  bad.  It  is  a  blow.  I  won't 
deny  it.  And  yet  not  an  unbearable  blow  to  me.  I  have 
expected  it,  for  one  thing ;  and  I  see,  now  that  it  has 
come,  that  I  have  long  been  half  willing."  He  looked  at 
Philip  sharply.  "  I  was  not  made  for  a  clergyman,  Mr. 
Deed." 

"  Oh,  don't  say  that,  man  ! "  The  cry  was  torn  from 
him.  "  For  heaven's  sake,  don't  say  that !  "  The  igno 
minious,  the  disastrous  fact  seemed  to  connect  itself  intol 
erably  with  the  thought  of  Dorothy ;  it  seemed  to  leave 
two  lives  in  ruins.  If  it  had  been  the  clergyman  alone, 
one  would  have  seen  only  the  tragic  waste  of  a  career. 
But  as  the  fact  involved  Dorothy,  Philip  could  not  face 
it. 

Turning  towards  Maurice,  he  saw  that  a  ghastly  pallor 
had  stolen  over  his  face,  which  was  sunk  upon  his  breast. 
He  went  over  to  him,  and  clapped  him  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Come  ! "  he  said  gently,  with  an  indescribable  min 
gling  of  contempt  and  pity  pulling  at  his  heart.  "  Take 
this  !  You  will  feel  better."  He  poured  a  glass  of  the 
wine  Maurice  had  been  discussing:  in  that  moment  of 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  325 

after-luncheon  talk  which  seemed  now  so  far  removed. 
The  clergyman  snatched  it,  and  drank  it  off. 

Philip  was  ashamed  to  be  a  witness  to  his  recovery  of 
himself.  He  turned  his  back,  and  went  to  the  window, 
within  sight  of  which  a  rider  was  endeavouring  to  break 
the  spirit  of  a  bucking  pony.  There  was  a  large  open 
space  behind  the  house,  and  untamed  broncos  were  often 
brought  here  from  the  neighbouring  livery-stable  for  this 
purpose.  The  tiresome  iteration  of  the  seesaw  motion 
with  which  the  brute  was  viciously  endeavouring  to  throw 
his  rider  renewed  Philip's  restlessness. 

"  You  must  go  away  from  here,"  he  heard  himself  say 
ing  to  Maurice,  as  he  turned  in  the  need  of  action,  or  the 
suggestion  of  action.  "  You  must  go  at  once." 

Maurice  shook  his  head  with  the  sadness  of  superior 
knowledge. 

"  No,  no  !    It  is  ended.     I  shall  never  preach  again." 

Philip  was  appalled. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  sir,  shake  this  off !  For  your  daugh 
ter's  sake, — for  Dorothy's  sake, — shake  it  off  !  " 

Maurice  looked  up  at  him  with  a  mournful  smile. 
"  Shake  it  off !  My  dear  young  man,  I  have  been  dis 
missed.  I  have  been  disgraced.  Oh,  my  God  !  "  he  cried, 
breaking  down ,  suddenly,  and  burying  his  face  in  his 
hands. 

Philip  bit  his  lip.  For  a  moment  there  was  silence  in 
the  room.  Then  there  came  a  ring  at  the  outer  door, 
and  a  knock  at  the  door  of  the  room  in  which  they  were. 
Philip  darted  to  it,  with  the  fear  in  his  throat  that  it 
might  be  Dorothy.  It  was  the  servant,  come  to  say  that 
Mr.  Vertner  was  in  the  parlor.  "  Say  that  Mr.  Maurice 
will  see  him  presently,"  Philip  said. 


326  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  could  not  secure  an 
other  parish  ?  "  he  demanded,  as  he  returned. 

Maurice,  who  had  risen  at  the  knock,  and  was  rest 
lessly  pacing  the  room  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
stopped  before  the  table,  littered  with  the  remains  of  the 
meal,  and  absently  took  a  bonbon  from  a  plate. 

"  Secure  it  ?  Perhaps.  Keep  it  ?  No.  This  story 
would  rise.  Oh,  I'm  not  degraded  from  my  office ;  I'm 
not  unfrocked,  as  they  used  to  call  it ! "  He  laughed 
scornfully.  "  It's  simply  a  story — the  most  powerful,  the 
most  subtle,  the  deadliest,  the  most  pitiless  enemy  a  man 
can  know.  If  I  were  younger,  or — let  me  say  it  all — if- 1 
cared  for  my  calling  as  I  once  did,  if  I  could  be  back  at 
twenty-five  again,  fresh  from  the  seminary,  a  young  di 
vinity  student,  with  the  old  fire,  with  the  old  feeling  that 
the  priesthood  was  the  holiest,  the  noblest,  almost  the 
only  possible  vocation  in  the  world — ah,  then  I  might  go 
on  and  fight  it  out.  I  might  try  to  live  it  down.  But  I 
don't  care.  I  have  learned  to  live  another  life.  I  have 
always  wanted  to  do  other  things,  and  even  when  I  cared 
most  for  my  work,  I  have  done  them.  I  have  done  them, 
at  last,  so  much  that  they  own  me.  I  don't  care"  he  re 
peated  in  a  kind  of  cry  of  pain,  and  stopped  short  in  his 
march  from  end  to  end  of  the  room,  to  add,  looking  Philip 
in  the  eyes — "  except — except  for  one  thing." 

Philip  framed  her  name  with  his  lips.  Maurice  nodded. 
"  For  Dorothy  I  would  give  all  that  remains  to  me  of  life ; 
for  Dorothy  I  would  go  on  in  this  work  of  mine,  if  they 
would  let  me,  always.  She  cares  for  it.  To  see  me  give 
it  up  will  be  a  shock  to  her.  To  see  me  forced  to  leave  it 
in  disgrace  would  kill  her." 

"  She  must  not  know  it,"  said  Philip,  setting  his  teeth. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  327 

"Must  not,"  repeated  Maurice.  He  stopped  again, 
and  faced  Philip.  "  Ah,  I  hoped  you  would  say  that !  I 
knew  it.  You  understand,  then,  my  purpose  in  telling 
you.  You  can  see,  now,  how  it  is  that  the  man  who  is  to 
marry  Dorothy  should  share  this  purpose  with  me." 

"  To  keep  the  knowledge  from  her  ? "  asked  Philip, 
quietly.  He  divined  with  contempt  how  Maurice  must  be 
doomed  to  long  with  all  his  cowering  soul  that  Dorothy 
should  never  come  to  know  him  as  he  was  ;  but  he  forced 
himself  to  do  justice  to  the  impulse  of  love  which  had 
the  same  need.  Maurice  loved  his  daughter ;  he  forgave 
him  much  for  that. 

"  To  keep  the  knowledge  from  her,"  repeated  Maurice. 
"  Perhaps  you  can  also  understand  how  it  is  necessary 
that  he  should  be  able  to  keep  it  from  her." 

"Able?" 

"If  I  give  up  my  calling,  Mr.  Deed,  I  give  up  the 
only  means  I  know  of  earning  a  living.  I  can  stay  in  it, 
and  fight,  and  she  must  know  ;  or  (the  question  of  liveli 
hood  being  done  away  with)  I  can  leave  it  apparently  of 
my  own  will,  and  she  need  not  know.  I  must  stay  in  it, 
if  I  must  go  on  earning  my  living ;  I  must  leave  it,  if  she 
is  not  to  know." 

Philip  regarded  him  in  amazement.  The  words  sang 
through  his  head  backward  and  forward.  He  made  noth 
ing  of  them. 

"  Yes,"  he  assented,  without  knowing  to  what  he  as 
sented. 

"  A  week  ago  I  should  have  been  saying  this  to  your 
brother.  I  know  him  now.  It  is  impossible  that  I  should 
any  longer  wish  his  marriage  with  Dorothy.  And  yet  it 
may  still  have  to  be.  You  know  Dorothy's  relation  to 


328  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

Jasper.  Why  not  say  it  frankly?  You  know  that  she 
once  cared  enough  for  him  to  engage  herself  to  him." 
Philip  bit  his  lip.  "You  can  judge  whether  it  is  un 
likely  that  she  will  accept  Jasper  to-morrow  when  he 
comes,  if  nothing  happens." 

Philip  clenched  his  hands.  "  Likely  ?  It  is  certain  ! 
You  don't  know ! " 

"  I  do  know,"  rejoined  the  clergyman,  quietly.  "  I 
have  gathered  my  own  impressions — from  Dorothy,  from 
the  discontinuance  of  your  visits  to  us,  from  other  things. 
I  know  what  Dorothy  thinks ;  and  I  know,  now,  that  she 
is  wrong.  It  is  because  of  that  I  speak."  Maurice  looked 
at  him  keenly.  "  I  ivish  something  to  happen,"  he  said. 

Philip  felt  himself  choking.  "  Do  you  mean —  Speak 
out,  man !  Do  you  mean  that — that  you  think  I  have  a 
chance  with  her  ?  " 

"  Ah,  I  must  not  say.  I  recommend  you  not  to  be 
discouraged." 

"  Oh,  if  I  thought  it ! "  cried  Philip. 

"  I  only  ask  you  to  remember  my  situation — hers — 
what  we  have  said." 

"  Tell  me,"  exclaimed  Philip,  fiercely,  with  a  sudden 
thought,  "  have  you  told  all  this  to  Jasper,  and  has  he 
refused  to  listen  ?  " 

"  No,"  returned  the  clergyman,  without  offence,  and 
with  the  sad  calm  that  remains  to  the  purposes  of  a 
broken  man ;  "  I  have  spoken  first  to  you.  I  shall  state 
the  necessities  of  the  case  to  him  only  if  you  force  me  to." 

A  wild  joy  played  through  Philip's  veins.  He  turned 
away  to  hide  his  unhoped-for  happiness,  with  its  perfect 
mingling  of  a  satisfied,  a  richly  satisfied  debt.  He  drank 
deep  of  the  pleasure  of  holding  Jasper's  fate  in  his  hands 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  329 

before  he  would  turn  and  face  Maurice  again.  It  was 
worth  while  to  have  borne  what  he  had  borne  from  Jasper 
for  this  moment. 

"  You  will  see  now — I  may  say  it  frankly,  since  you 
understand,  now,  that  it  implies  no  reflection  on  you — 
how,  in  my  present  situation,  in  Dorothy's  situation,  I 
could  not  let  her  think  of  a  poor  man,  even  if  she  were 
inclined  to." 

Philip  started.  He  remembered  his  old,  his  rooted 
distrust  of  Maurice.  Was  it  possible  that  all  this  story 
was  devised — cooked  up  ?  But  if  it  was,  what  was  its 
object  ?  He  had  nothing  to  give  Maurice ;  he  could  do 
nothing  for  him.  Surely  he  was  the  type  of  poverty. 

And  then,  in  an  instant,  he  saw.  He  perceived  that 
he  stood  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  and  realized  that  he 
had  brought  himself  to  it.  It  was  not  Maurice.  Beside 
him  the  clergyman  was  a  man  of  truth  and  justice  and 
honour. 

"  That  is  so,"  he  heard  the  clergyman  going  on,  "  be 
cause  the  man  who  marries  Dorothy  must  be  able  to  make 
it  practicable  for  me  to  leave  the  ministry,  now,  at  once ; 
and,  naturally,  without  the  scandal  which  would  kill  her." 
He  paused.  Then,  after  a  moment :  "  But  if  Dorothy 
should  listen  to  you,"  he  added,  "it  must  be  so  for 
another  reason.  If  Dorothy  should  engage  herself  to  any 
one  but  your  brother,  it  is  right  to  tell  you  that  I  must 
be  prepared  to  find  a  considerable  sum  at  once." 

Philip's  eyes  fell.  The  clergyman  studied  his  face 
attentively. 

The  younger  man  raised  his  eyes  at  last,  and  gave  back 
Maurice's  look. 

"  Why  ?  "  he  asked  coldly. 


330  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Because  I  owe  your  brother  rather  more  than  five 
thousand  dollars." 

"  Jasper  ?     Why  ?    How  ?  " 

"  The  larger  part  of  it  was  a  loan  from  him  to  enable 
me  to  take  a  share  in  Vertner's  paper,  '  The  Kalendar.' 
The  rest  is  made  up  of  smaller  sums,  borrowed  before  and 
since.  It  began  with  a  trifling  loan  to  assist  me  in  escap 
ing  from  certain  difficulties,  rising  out  of  my  Church 
School  of  Music  in  Michigan.  You  may  have  heard  of 
my  failure  there.  I  have  always  been  grateful  to  him  for 
fhat.  And  from  time  to  time  I  have  wanted  money.  I 
have  never  been  able  to  make  my  tastes  harmonize  with 
my  income.  I  think  you  know  how  that  is,  Mr.  Deed." 

Philip  winced  at  this  home-thrust,  and  winced  even 
more  at  the  association  of  himself  with  the  pitiable  man 
before  him.  "  Things  which  to  a  certain  order  of  mind 
seem  luxuries,  to  us — to  me  are  necessities.  Jasper  has 
found  his  account  in  this.  When  I  have  wanted  money, 
he  has  always  pressed  it  on  me.  He  has  had  his  purpose. 
But  he  has  not  let  me  feel  it.  A  week  ago,  after  he  had 
spoken  to  Dorothy,  he  sought  me  at  the  station.  He  re 
minded  me  then." 

"  Cad  ! "  exclaimed  Philip  under  his  breath ;  but  his 
mind  was  already  far  away.  A  thousand  thoughts  went 
racing  through  his  head,  grouping  themselves  odiously, 
and  dissolving  again  in  strange  and  alluring  shapes. 

His  companion  did  not  respond,  and  the  conversation 
fell. 

Philip  sat  staring  moodily  at  the  stove,  which,  in  this 
room,  replaced  the  usual  open  fire.  A  kettle  hummed  on 
it,  purfling  on  the  air  its  leisurely  cloud  of  steam.  The 
cat,  lying  before  the  stove,  purring  regularly,  and  the 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  331 

ticking  of  the  clock  on  the  mantel  made  the  silence 
hideous.  Philip  knew  that  his  hope  of  Dorothy,  his 
future,  and  his  honour  lay  on  the  other  side  of  this 
silence. 

In  the  swift,  final  moment  of  temptation,  if  a  man 
may  be  said  to  think,  it  is  at  least  not  his  present  thought 
which  decides.  The  thoughts  already  allowed  himself ; 
the  trivial  consents ;  the  reasoned  compliances  gone  before, 
determine  for  him.  He  may  even  find  himself  bound  by 
his  silences.  And  for  Philip,  casting  about  in  the  blind 
fever  of  his  hope  to  save  himself,  the  right  and  whole 
some  thoughts  which  he  could  still  conjure  to  his  aid  were 
answered  not  by  another  and  an  evil  thought,  but  by  a 
feeling — a  sweet,  strong  ecstasy,  that  gripped  and  held 
him,  and  seemed  to  have  its  own  sacredness. 

Maurice's  secret — was  it  likely  that  Jasper  would  keep 
it  from  Dorothy  beyond  the  moment  in  which  it  served 
his  interest  to  guard  it?  Had  not  he,  Philip,  the  pre 
eminent  right  of  reverence,  of  tenderness,  over  a  future 
that  must  always  be  threatened  by  the  knowledge  of  what 
Maurice  had  told  him  ?  And  he  loved  her.  Did  Jasper 
love  her  as  he  loved  her?  A  passionate  belief  in  the 
supreme  right  of  his  love  filled  him. 

Yet  all  the  rectitude  of  a  life  unspotted  by  an  act  of 
wrong  rose  in  protest.  Little  impulses  mingled  with  the 
big.  A  certain  pride  which  he  had  always  kept  about  his 
final  integrity  in  money  affairs,  in  the  midst  of  the  loose 
ness  about  them  of  which  every  one  knew,  caused  him  to 
smart  in  imagination.  He  seemed  to  see  that  he  could 
not  do  this  thing  ;  not  for  any  happiness  the  earth  could 
hold,  not  for  Dorothy. 

He  opened  his  lips  to  tell  Maurice  that  the  "  Little 


332  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

Cipher  "  was  Jasper's,  and  that,  if  he  sought  a  man  strong 
in  the  strength  that  wealth  gives,  it  was  to  him  that  he 
really  must  turn ;  but  the  silent  shaping  of  the  sentence 
in  which  he  should  tell  him,  gave  the  whole  story  of  his 
real  relation  to  Jasper  back  to  his  memory. 

Was  it  more  or  other  than  a  fair  exchange — the  ranch 
for  the  mine?  It  was  ever  Jasper's  taunt  that  he  did  not 
pay  his  debts.  There  was  a  debt  he  would  pay.  The 
accumulations,  the  additions,  the  compound  interest  of 
insult  and  offence,  now  gathered  themselves  in  his  mind 
into  a  single  bulk,  in  the  face  of  which  all  scruples  grew 
absurd. 

He  would  pay  the  debt ;  and  if  he  overpaid  it,  there 
was  always  the  obligation  his  father  owed  Jasper.  The 
balance  could  be  credited  to  that  account.  As  he  thought 
of  his  father,  the  savage  impulse  of  hate  which  had  caused 
him  to  gloat  a  few  moments  earlier  in  the  knowledge  that 
Jasper's  future  lay  in  his  hands,  sent  a  sweep  of  exultant 
yearning  for  vengeance  through  him. 

He  saw  that  in  all  his  forbearance  towards  Jasper,  in 
his  softening  of  his  father's  wrath,  in  the  just  course  he 
had  tried  to  walk  with  his  brother  since  Jasper  had 
wronged  him,  the  black  hate  which  now  rose  in  his  heart 
had  its  part.  It  must  always  have  lain  crouched  there.  It 
seemed  now  to  spring  out  from  him  into  an  awful  aloof 
ness,  where,  with  a  beast's  instinct,  it  had  the  will,  if  he 
would  let  it,  to  rend  and  tear. 

Was  he  to  give  this  man  a  fortune  ?  Was  he  to  beggar 
himself  for  him  ?  He  was  ready  to  do  that.  He  meant 
to  do  it.  But  how  if  to  impoverish  himself  and  to  enrich 
Jasper  was  to  lose  the  new  hope  of  Dorothy,  thrilling 
along  his  pulses  like  wine  ?  Could  he  bear  it  ?  Perhaps. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  333 

But  to  lose  her  that  Jasper  might  win  her  ?  He  shook 
his  head  with  a  gentle  smile  of  scorn. 

"  Well  ?  "  inquired  Maurice. 

Philip  rose  suddenly.     A  light  shone  in  his  eyes. 

"  May  I  speak  to  Miss  Maurice  ?  " 

The  clergyman  glanced  at  him  in  surprise.  But  he 
rose,  and  went  to  the  door  with  him. 

"  Yes." 

Philip  passed  out  into  the  hallway  with  the  flicker  of 
a  smile  on  his  set  lips. 


XXIV. 

THE  sun  was  dyeing  the  paper  stained  glass  in  the 
hall  windows  to  a  similitude  of  the  costly  beauty  they 
imitated  as  Dorothy  went  to  the  front  door  at  sound  of 
the  bell.  Through  one  of  the  palest  lozenges  of  glass  she 
discerned  a  figure  which  she  knew  for  Vertner's.  His 
hand  was  on  the  bell  when  she  opened  the  door  to  him. 

"  Oh,  are  you  back,  Mr.  Vertner  ?  "  she  said,  offering 
him  her  hand. 

"  Yes.  You  just  saved  yourself.  In  another  minute  I 
should  have  started  that  slam-bang  gong  on  its  errand  of 
destruction."  It  was  one  of  the  gongs,  set  in  the  door  it 
self,  which  explode  a  clangour  through  the  house,  sending 
a  shiver  to  the  remotest  nerve  of  the  structure.  "  There 
would  be  bells  in  your  landlord's  house  if  we  had  the 
building  of  it,  wouldn't  there  ?  "We'd  have  them  in  the 
window-sashes;  they'd  go  off  when  Cozzens  opened  his 
bureau  drawers  ;  they'd  be  concealed  in  chairs ;  we'd  pave* 


334  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

the  house  with  them ;  he'd  go  to  sleep  to  a  weird  whir 
from  the  cellar,  and  wake  to  the  unmerciful  buzz  of  one 
of  the  things  by  his  bedside.  I  think  we  could  fix  him 
out  How's  your  father  ?  " 

Dorothy  smiled,  and  changed  the  subject  with  his  own 
facility.  "  Papa  is  very  well.  Would  you  like  to  see  him  ? 
He  is  at  luncheon  with  Mr.  Deed,  but  he  will  be  in  in  a 
moment."  She  opened  the  door  into  the  little  parlour  at 
the  front  of  the  house. 

"  Don't  disturb  him,"  said  Vertner,  as  he  walked 
briskly  over  to  the  plant-stand  on  which  Dorothy  kept 
her  winter  flowers,  and  put  his  face  down  into  a  geranium. 
"  You  made  out  with  the  cactus,  didn't  you  ?  You  must 
show  Beatrice.  No ;  it  was  only  a  little  matter." 

"  About  the  paper  ?  " 

"  Well,  partly.  I've  got  a  new  idea  about '  The  Kalen- 
dar.'  But  I  think  I  must  have  wanted  to  see  you  as  much 
as  anything.  We  haven't  talked  '  schemes '  for  a  long 
time,  have  we  ?  " 

It  had  been  a  joke  between  them  since  the  day  of  their 
conference  about  the  paper  that  Vertner  must  always  dis 
cuss  a  new  scheme  with  Dorothy  before  finally  commit 
ting  himself  to  it.  He  pretended  to  defer  to  her  advice, 
and  Dorothy  pretended  she  believed  that  he  did. 

"  Oh,  no,"  assented  Dorothy.  "  What  is  the  new  one, 
Mr.  Vertuer  ?  Is  it  a  bonanza  or  a  gold-mine  ?  I'm  sure 
'  some  one  is  bound  to  go  into  it  if  you  don't,'  and  that  it 
will  give  you  the  'cinch  on  the  whole  business,'"  she  said, 
parodying  his  phrases  fearfully ;  "  but  do  you  think  we 
ought  to  go  into  it  ?  Should  we  '  come  in  on  the  ground 
floor '  ?  That's  the  important  point  for  us  to  consider, 
isn't  it  ?  " 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  335 

She  made  these  suggestions  absently.  She  was  think 
ing  of  something  else. 

"  "Well,  I  don't  know,"  rejoined  Vertner,  gazing  at  the 
blooming  cactus,  while  he  swung  his  hat  between  his  legs. 
"  Don't  you  think  we  ought  to  make  sure  first  whether 
Schlesinger  will  sell  ?  " 

Dorothy  brought  herself  back  to  give  this  question  the 
advantage  of  her  judgment,  and  they  laughed  together  as 
Vertner  explained  his  plan  of  forming  a  syndicate  to  buy 
up  the  entire  municipality  of  Spesiana,  a  deserted  city  in 
the  mountains,  which  had  enjoyed  its  boom,  but  had  not 
lived  through  it.  Vertner  meant  to  organize  another 
boom.  Schlesinger  had  bought  most  of  the  city  lots  on 
speculation,  but  he  would  sell,  now,  if  he  was  approached 
right.  The  boom  would  begin  after  the  sale.  He  said  he 
could  work  the  newspapers. 

Vertner  noticed  that  Dorothy's  attention  wandered. 
She  usually  listened  to  his  schemes  intently ;  and  guessing 
that  something  interested  her  more  at  the  moment,  he 
changed  the  subject  with,  "  So  Jasper  is  back  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Deed  ?  No ;  it  is  Mr.  Philip  Deed  who  is  with 
papa." 

"  No  ?  Is  it  ?  I  want  to  see  him.  I  want  to  con 
gratulate  him.  You  heard,  of  course  ?  " 

"About  his  mine?     Oh,  yes;  Mr.  Cutter  told  us." 

"You  don't  seem  very  glad,"  he  said,  glancing  at 
her. 

"  Glad  ?    Oh,  yes." 

"  Well,  then,  not  enthusiastic." 

Dorothy  regarded  him  studiously  a  moment  without 
speaking.  Many  thoughts  were  going  through  her  mind, 

many  considerations ;  and  at  last  a  resolution  seemed  to 
22 


336  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

enter  it,  for  she  said  suddenly,  and  with  an  effect  of 
bracing  herself  : 

"  Mr.  Vertner,  do  you  know  Mr.  Philip  Deed  very 
well  ?  " 

Vertner  was  instantly  serious.  "  Yes,  Miss  Maurice. 
Very  well.  Why  ?  "  he  asked  kindly. 

"  Because —  You  will  know  of  a  difference  he  has  had 
with  his  brother — a  quarrel,  I — I  don't  know  what.  I 
haven't  liked  to  ask.  But  I  must  ask  some  one,  now. 
And  you — you  will  know." 

The  uncharacteristic  hesitations,  the  tremulous  ad 
vances  and  retreats,  seemed  to  Vertner  to  call  on  his 
chivalry. 

"  But  surely  you  have  heard — "  he  began  blunder 
ingly. 

"  I  have  heard  of  the  injunction  which  Mr.  Jasper 
Deed  has  secured  against  his  brother — something  about 
his  ranch.  Yes.  He  has  had  to  defend  himself,  at  last." 

"  Who  ?  " 

"  Why,  Mr.  Deed." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Miss  Maurice,  but  which  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Jasper  Deed,  of  course." 

"  Jasper  ?  " 

She  nodded. 

"Jasper  ?  "  he  repeated.  "  Jasper  defend  himself,  and 
'  at  last '  ?  0  Miss  Maurice  !  Why,  would  you  mind 
telling  me  how  much  you  do  know  of  this  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head  in  rueful  bewilderment.  "  I  don't 
know." 

"  Well,  you  know  how  things  stood  when  he  went 
away.  Let's  find  a  basis,  Miss  Maurice.  This  hurts  my 
poor  head." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  337 

"  But  you  don't  suppose  he  would  tell  me,  surely  ? 
You  know  him,  Mr.  Vertner.  Does  it  seem  likely  that 
he  could  condemn  his  brother  to  me  if — if  he  had  suf 
fered  from  him?  You  don't  know.  Even  if  it  were 
likely,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  him,  to  any  one, 
as — as  things  have  been." 

"  Would  it  ?  "  asked  Vertner,  in  a  daze.  "  Oh,  yes  ; 
of  course  it  would  ! "  And  then,  "  To  whom  ?  " 

"To  whom?" 

"  Yes  ;  whose  impossibility  ?  who  couldn't  ?  Yes  ; 
that's  what  I  mean?" 

"  Mr.  Jasper  Deed,"  she  said  quickly.  "  Who  else 
could  I  mean  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  !  I  don't  know  ! "  cried  Vertner, 
beating  back  an  imaginary  army  of  conjectures  with  his 
outstretched  palm.  Then  falling  sober  again,  "  Philip, 
for  one,  I  should  say,  Miss  Maurice." 

"  Before  he  went  away,  did  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes,"  drawled  Vertner. 

"  But—" 

"  And  did  he  never  tell  you  how  things  stood  in  this 
case  of  Deed  versus  Deed?" 

"Ah,  you  expect  him  to  have  condemned  himself? 
So  did  I.  I  thought  him  strong  enough.  I  believed  he 
would  rather  condemn  himself  than  let  me  doubt  his 
brother  wrongly.  Oh,  if  he  had  been  strong  enough  for 
that,  I  should  have  believed  in  him  always !  I  should 
have  known.  He  did  not  believe  that  I  would  know. 
He  would  not  believe  that  I  should  understand  how  his 
brother  could  be  maddening,  and  he — he  hot-headed." 

"  And  do  you  mean  to  say —  ?  "  cried  Vertner.  "  Oh, 
no,  no  1  I  knew  the  boy  was  a  wild  and  roaring  unicorn 


338  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

on  some  subjects,  but  I  never  supposed  he  could  go  and 
be  such  an  ass.  And  you  have  been  thinking  that  he  was 
the  one  to  blame  in  all  this  row  with  Jasper !  Oh,  that's 
very  pretty ! "  He  paused  a  moment  to  contemplate  the 
beauty  of  the  idea.  "  And  you  never  knew  that  Jasper 
had  done  his  brother  out  of  his  share  in  the  ranch  by  a 
foul  trick,  and  broken  his  father's  heart  by  the  same  op 
eration,  and  sent  him  to —  You  never  knew  all  that ! " 
he  exclaimed,  breaking  off  suddenly.  "  And  you've  been 
thinking — oh  !  "  Vertner  exclaimed.  "  Why,  you  must 
keep  up  with  the  news  of  the  day,  Miss  Maurice,"  he  told 
her,  when  he  could  speak.  "  You  mustn't  let  these  facts 
of  contemporary  human  interest  get  by  you  in  this  way ; 
though,  come  to  think  of  it,  I  don't  know  how  you  could 
have  heard  about  it,  unless  Phil  had  told  you.  Except 
Deed  and  his  wife,  who  have  taken  their  knowledge  off  to 
heaven  knows  where,  no  one  knows  anything  about  it  but 
Philip  and  myself.  Jasper  knows  about  it.  But  he  didn't 
tell  you?  No;  naturally.  There  has  been  one  other — 
the  fellow  who  bought  the  ranch — Snell.  But  he's  been 
keeping  it  dark,  /don't  know  what's  possessed  him." 

"  Bought  the  ranch  ?  "  gasped  Dorothy.  "  Mr. 
Snell?" 

"Yes.  Oh,  yes.  That's  just  a  little  bit  from  this 
picturesque  muss.  You  shall  have  the  rest  if  you  like  the 
sample." 

"  Tell  me  the  whole,  please,  Mr.  Vertner.  Tell  me 
everything,"  cried  Dorothy  in  a  brave  voice  that  died 
away  in  a  quiver. 

When  Vertner  found  himself  in  the  street  a  little 
later,  after  telling  her  the  whole  story,  including  Deed's 
and  Margaret's  share  in  it,  he  turned  towards  home, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  339 

cursing    himself    roundly.      He  did   not  like  to  see  a 
woman  cry. 

Dorothy  stood  with  her  face  pressed  against  the 
pane,  looking  out  desperately  towards  the  big,  uncaring 
mountains.  She  felt  Philip  by  her  side,  and  could  not 
turn  her  face.  They  stood  together  in  the  window,  for  a 
moment,  in  silence. 

"  "Would  it  matter  if  I  said — "  began  Philip  in  a  low 
tone.  But  at  the  sound  of  his  voice  she  turned  her 
streaming  eyes  upon  him,  and  he  stood  gazing  into  them. 

"  Don't ! "  she  begged  brokenly.     "  Don't ! " 

He  shrank.  It  was  like  a  ghostly  voice  crying  out  on 
him  to  stay  his  purpose. 

"  No ;  you  must  listen ! "  he  had  said  incoherently, 
before  he  knew.  He  did  not  know  what  he  meant  to  ask 
her  to  listen  to. 

He  seized  her  hand  involuntarily.  She  caught  it  away. 
"  No ! "  she  cried.  "  No  !  You  don't  know  !  " 

His  conjecture  darted  instantly  to  her  father.  Had 
she  heard  ?  Was  the  little  leaven  of  another's  good  to 
fail  his  act?  Was  she  to  suffer,  notwithstanding?  The 
flux  and  influx  of  his  will  about  the  odious  thing  he  was 
doing  went  on  in  him  subconsciously  in  the  face  of  his 
resolve  to  take  his  right,  to  use  the  mine  which  was  not 
his,  to  square  accounts  with  Jasper,  to  deal  with  him  as 
he  had  been  dealt  by. 

The  thought  that  he  should  not  benefit  her  daunted 
him.  He  seemed  now  to  himself  to  find  his  only  warrant 
for  his  act  in  this  little  note  of  right,  of  kindness,  or  of 
love,  which  sang  within  it  somewhere. 

"  I  have  wronged  you,  Mr.  Deed,"  he  heard  her  saying, 


340  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

as  all  his  resolve  seemed  sucked  away  from  him  in  the 
sudden  outflow  of  his  will.  "  Oh,  I  have  wronged  you 
bitterly ! " 

He  looked  up.     "  Wronged  me  ?  "  he  cried. 

"  Yes,  yes  !  Oh,  yes  !  We  can't  speak  of  it.  There's 
nothing  I  can  say  or  do  that  could  make  you  know  how — 
how  I  feel  to  have — to  have — " 

He  saw  the  tears  start  in  her  eyes  with  a  shock  of 
shame.  "  I  hope  there  isn't,  Miss  Maurice.  Don't  try  to 
say  anything  like  that.  Pray,  don't.  I  couldn't  bear  it." 

"But  I  must.  Your  silence — I  misconstrued  it.  I 
thought—" 

"And  you  don't  think  so  now?  I'm  glad  of  that." 
He  took  her  hand,  and  this  time  she  let  him  keep  it  a 
moment. 

"  But — you  don't  know  what  I  have  thought  of  you." 

Philip  frowned,  but  he  said  with  a  smile,  "  I  don't 
care ;  or  I  sha'n't  if  you'll  tell  me  what  you  think  wow." 
He  bent  over  her,  looking  into  her  eyes.  She  dropped 
her  gaze  to  the  carpet. 

"  Look  up  ! "  he  said.  She  obeyed  him  slowly.  They 
let  their  eyes  rest  on  each  other,  and  melt  and  mix  in  a 
glance  that  taught  them  each  other.  Then  he  stooped 
shyly,  and  kissed  her. 


XXV. 

THE  days  that  followed  were  very  dear  to  Dorothy. 
She  had  given  herself  wholly  to  Philip  in  that  first  meet 
ing  of  the  lips,  which  seemed  to  make  all  things  straight, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  341 

and  straight  forever.  She  had  her  reserves  with  him,  but 
she  had  no  doubts.  She  knew  now  that  she  had  been  his, 
and  only  his,  from  the  beginning.  She  thought  of  Jasper, 
as  she  now  saw  him,  with  a  shudder,  and  made  up  to 
Philip  in  her  heart,  if  not  in  the  outward  expressions  she 
allowed  herself,  for  every  kindly  impulse  towards  Jasper 
she  had  known. 

For  the  contumely  which  she  seemed  to  herself  to 
have  heaped  on  Philip  in  believing  him  in  the  wrong  in 
the  question  between  him  and  Jasper,  she  could  find  no 
proper  penance.  But  the  purity,  the  instinctive  morality, 
the  pitiless,  colorless  sense  of  right  which  Jasper  feared 
and  admired  in  her,  saw  in  this  silence  of  Philip's,  which 
had  gone  so  near  to  cost  them  each  other,  a  nobility  be 
yond  praise.  Philip  laughed  at  this  when  she  told  him 
of  it  in  the  long  interchange  of  confidences  which  filled 
the  afternoon,  after  he  had  spoken  and  had  taken  his  an 
swer  from  her.  She  liked  to  have  him  laugh;  but  she 
said  that  however  wicked  and  wrong  and  dangerous  it 
was  to  have  kept  that  silence,  it  was  fine,  and  she  would 
not  have  had  him  speak — especially  when  he  saw  that  she 
doubted  him — even  if — 

"  Even  if — ?  "  queried  Philip,  with  the  rising  inflection 
of  impudence. 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  moment  in  affectionate  mus 
ing.  He  reached  from  the  other  end  of  the  sofa,  where 
they  were  sitting,  and  took  her  hand.  "  No,"  she  said,  as 
her  eyes  filled  spontaneously  with  happy  tears  ;  "  I  should 
never  have  forgiven  you  if  you  had  let  it  go  so  far  as 
that!" 

She  began  to  abuse  his  foibles  to  win  her  way  back  to 
her  reserves.  She  said  it  wouldn't  do  to  spoil  him  too 


342  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

much.  He  had  spoiled  himself  enough  already.  It  was 
no  wonder  that  she  had  been  a  long  time  making  up  her 
mind  to  accept  such  a  reckless,  careless,  extravagant, 
haphazard  lover. 

"  Oh,  come  ! "  cried  Philip.  "  There  was  nothing 
haphazard  about  my  love.  I  wished  sometimes  that  there 
might  be." 

"  There's  something  haphazard  about  a  young  man 
who  buys  three  ponies  when  he  can't  possibly  use  more 
than  one." 

"  Not  when  one  of  them  is  for  a  young  lady  who 
chooses  to  take  a  view  of  things,  after  the  purchase  of 
ponies,  which  makes  it  impossible  to  ask  her  to  ride  one  of 
them." 

Dorothy  blushed.     "  Oh  !  " 

He  made  her  agree  to  use  one  of  the  ponies  as  her 
own  ;  and  when  he  had  taken  himself  off  to  the  "  Snow 
Find,"  having  first  given  his  orders  about  the  pony  at 
the  stables,  where  he  had  left  the  animal  after  he  had 
ceased  to  see  Dorothy,  she  sent  word  to  the  livery-stable 
people  that  she  should  want  to  ride  in  the  morning,  early. 
She  caught  sight  of  Erufield's  boy  passing  the  house  on 
his  way  to  the  stables,  and  despatched  the  message  by 
him. 

"Be'n  gittin'  good  news,  Miss  Maurice?"  inquired 
Fred,  as  he  laid  a  hand  on  the  phaeton  she  had  come  from 
the  house  to  stop. 

She  saw  that  he  recognized  the  happiness  in  her  face  ; 
and  she  liked  Fred  well  enough,  and  felt  safe  enough  with 
him  to  say,  "  Yes,  Fred — very."  But  she  admonished  her 
self  that  this  public  expression  of  her  happiness  wouldn't 
do;  and  she  asked  Fred  about  Dr.  Ernfield. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  343 

"  Oh,  Doc's  all  broke  up  lately,"  said  the  boy.  "  /  do' 
know  what's  the  matter  of  him.  He  usen't  to  be  like  that. 
He  don't  seem  to  have  his  old  git  up  an'  git  any  more,  Doc 
don't.  Here  I  be'n  drivin'  round  to  tell  our  patients  that 
we  can't  come  to-day.  We're  laid  up,  we  are ;  and  that's 
the  way  it  goes." 

Dorothy's  heart  went  out  to  Ernfield  in  a  pity  which 
took  a  new  edge  from  her  own  fortune.  She  asked  Fred, 
while  she  smiled  at  his  invariable  air  of  proprietorship  in 
Ernfield,  to  tell  the  doctor  that  she  was  coming  to  see 
him  next  day,  if  he  would  let  her.  She  felt  as  if  her  love 
somehow  consecrated  her  to  all  the  suffering  and  failure 
and  misfortune  everywhere.  She  felt  as  if  she  must  be 
worthy  of  her  bliss ;  it  must  teach  her  to  look  out,  not  in. 
There  was  a  fresh  force  in  the  world  ;  it  was  created  anew. 
It  seemed  to  her  that  her  whole  life  must  be  an  outgiving 
of  the  great  spiritual  truth  which  had  descended  upon 
her.  Her  one  word,  of  which  she  had  learned  the  mean 
ing  for  the  first  time  to-day,  seemed  to  explain  so  much,  to 
make  so  much  perplexity  smooth,  to  melt  so  much  doubt 
and  trouble,  to  make  foolish  so  much  striving.  The  joy 
which  knocked  at  her  heart,  and  seemed  to  beat  there 
sometimes  as  if  it  would  burst  its  gates,  was  not  a  thing 
of  which  either  she  or  Philip  should  take  all  the  good. 
It  was  for  everybody ;  only,  she  thought,  they  should  not 
know  what  blessed  them.  And  in  the  morning,  as  a  be 
ginning,  she  took  her  ride. 

It  was  a  good  ride.  She  seemed  to  find  herself  in  it, 
and  these  early,  sunny  morning  hours,  in  which  she  fled 
along  the  mesa  alone,  in  a  sweet  abandonment  to  the  joy 
of  the  motion  of  the  morning,  and  of  the  inward  tumult 
of  her  thoughts,  remained  always  in  her  memory  as  mo- 


344  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

ments  a  little  better  than  speech  could  report.  Even 
Philip  she  never  told  of  this  ride. 

They  took  many  rides  together,  however,  in  the  valley, 
and  among  the  mountains,  and  up  the  mountains ;  and 
the  compensatory  law  of  Nature  by  which  the  work  of  the 
world  is  continued  in  the  face  of  an  engagement  enabled 
the  usual  output  of  ore  to  be  taken  from  the  "  Snow  Find  " 
daily,  with  little  assistance  from  Philip.  Cutter  was  one 
of  Nature's  assistants  in  this,  and  the  lovers  recognized 
together  his  unfailing  goodness.  Philip  went  back  and 
told  her  about  their  life  together  at  Pinon.  He  said 
affectionately  that  Cutter  was  an  awful  ass,  and  the  best 
fellow  in  the  world.  He  should  be  sorry  when  he  grew 
less  an  ass,  because  he  might  be  less  entirely  the  best  fel 
low.  He  said,  moreover,  he  was  afraid  that  the  West  was 
teaching  him  something;  he  feared  he  was  acquiring 
sense  about  some  things;  he  could  see  his  affectations 
dropping  away  from  him  one  by  one. 

And  then  he  told  her  about  Cutter's  affair  with  Elsa 
Berrian,  and  Dorothy  compassionated  him  tenderly.  She 
wished  every  one  they  liked  to  be  engaged,  to  be  happy  in 
their  love.  She  said  hard  things  of  Elsa,  but  she  professed 
to  be  sure  that  she  and  Cutter  would  understand  each 
other,  finally,  as  they  had.  Surely  they  had  suffered 
enough  from  misunderstandings,  but  all  had  fallen  out 
well  with  them.  Philip  ridiculed  her  optimism ;  and 
then  he  asked  her  if  she  was  quite  sure  that  even  they  were 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  accidents  of  fate.  They  would 
sometimes  feign  themselves  lost  to  each  other  for  the 
pleasure  of  surprising  their  happiness  afresh  ;  but  some 
thing  in  Philip's  voice  made  her  turn  upon  him  quickly. 

"  Why  ?    Is  there  something  ?     Have  you  heard  from 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  345 

your  brother  ?  What  is  it,  Philip  ?  "  She  laid  a  gentle 
hand  on  his  arm. 

They  were  riding  on  the  pine-covered  mesa. 

Philip  denied  to  himself  the  ache  and  the  foreboding 
out  of  which  he  had  spoken,  as  he  held  aside  a  bough  to 
let  her  pass. 

"  Nothing,"  he  said.  "  Why  should  there  be  any 
thing?" 

"  I  don't  know.  Everything  makes  me  afraid.  It' was 
never  so  until — until  I  had  this  to  lose.  It  seems  to  me 
every  little  while  as  if  something  must  happen.  Perhaps 
we  are  too  happy."  She  sighed,  and  Philip  laughed  down 
the  wasteful  use  of  a  present  happiness  as  an  object  for 
the  threats  of  destiny. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  he  asked,  "  that  no  two  people 
were  ever  happy  enough  before  to  excite  the  jealousy  of 
the  evil-minded  fates?"  And  he  added  that  the  fates 
were  still  kept  so  busy  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  that  they 
hadn't  had  time  yet  to  come  West  and  grow  up  with  the 
country.  "  They  may  be  wrecking  the  happiness  of  some 
loving  pair  in  Connecticut,  or  Massachusetts,  or  New 
York  at  this  moment.  In  fact,  it's  likely.  But  they 
haven't  time  for  Colorado.  Business  is  too  brisk  where 
they  are." 

She  laughed,  and  Philip  proposed  a  gallop.  He  was 
willing  to  be  rid  of  his  own  thoughts. 

Dorothy  liked  to  make  him  see  how  she  had  come  to 
be  such  a  goose  about  the  proportion  of  his  guilt  in  the 
affair  with  Jasper.  It  involved  accusations  on  both  sides, 
and,  on  the  whole,  they  liked  the  security  with  which  they 
might  now  accuse  each  other  as  well  as  anything.  She 
asserted  that  her  idea  about  that  affair  was  not  merelv  the 


346  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

natural  conclusion,  but  that  she  should  think  the  same 
thing  again. 

"  Oh,  come !  "  cried  Philip.     "  Not  quite  !  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Dorothy,  judicially.  "  You  see 
what  I  went  on.  I  was  sure  you  were  a  hasty,  hot-tem 
pered,  sensitive,  high-strung,  harum-scarum  young  man," 
she  said,  smiling  at  him,  "  and  I  knew  your  brother  for  a 
gentleman  of  judgment.  You  must  remember  that  he  had 
never  given  me  any  reason  to  doubt  his  honesty  or  his — 
his  virtues.  They  weren't  romantic,  like  the  vices  of  some 
other  people  I  could  name,  but  they  were  solid.  At  least 
they  seemed  so.  I  believed  in  them,  at  any  rate ;  I  sup 
pose  I '  esteemed '  them.  Isn't  that  the  word  ?  " 

"  You  took  good  care  not  to  esteem  my  virtues,  I 
observe." 

"Did  I?"  quizzed  Dorothy.  "I  hadn't  noticed. 
Were  they  about  ?  " 

"  They  weren't  estimable." 

"  I'm  sure  I  didn't  esteem  them." 

"  I  believe  you.     You  were  busy." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  little  arch  lift  of  her  eyelid ; 
"loving  them." 

They  had  been  climbing  the  hill  which  Margaret  and 
Ernfield  had  once  climbed.  He  caught  her  hand  to  his 
lips. 

It  was  easy  to  answer  such  expressions — of  which,  how 
ever,  she  was  very  frugal — in  the  manner  allotted  to  them, 
and  to  find  the  moment's  happiness  which  they  should 
produce  to  the  normal  lover;  but  it  was  impossible  to 
keep  this  content.  And  when  he  was  away  from  her,  in 
the  face  of  every  reason  for  joy,  he  was  blankly  miserable. 
Cutter,  who  was  the  first  to  whom  he  told  the  news  of  his 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  347 

engagement,  and  who  rejoiced  in  it  as  became  a  friend, 
noticed  his  moodiness,  as  Vertner  and  Ernfield  did,  also, 
after  a  time ;  and  they  twitted  or  gibed  him  after  their 
several  fashions,  until  Cutter  saw  it  was  serious,  and  set 
himself  to  help  him,  if  he  could.  But  Philip  repulsed  him 
almost  rudely. 

In  the  long  nights  he  thought  he  must  tell  her ;  but 
when  he  saw  her  radiant  face  again,  it  was  seen  to  be 
impossible  and  absurd.  No ;  he  had  bought  his  happi 
ness  with  a  price.  If  the  price  was  high,  the  more  reason 
for  not  risking  it  by  suffering  foolish  qualms  to  tempt 
him  to  the  revelation  which  hung  always  on  his  lips.  He 
thought  sometimes  that  she  must  read  his  secret  in  his 
eyes.  How  could  it  be  that  a  man  should  lose  the  power 
to  face  himself  in  the  defenceless  moments  of  solitude, 
and  fail  to  show  it  in  his  countenance  ? 

He  could  still  make  it  seem  right — what  he  had  done 
as  it  touched  Jasper.  Nay ;  it  sometimes  seemed  as  finely, 
as  excellently,  right  as  it  had  seemed  in  the  moment  which 
had  persuaded  him  to  the  wrongful  silence  he  was  now 
committed  to.  But  as  it  lived  in  the  same  world  with 
Dorothy  it  was  a  foul  and  unspeakable  thing ;  it  was  to 
the  full  the  wrong,  or  more  than  the  wrong,  it  could  have 
seemed  to  his  old  rectitude,  if  it  had  approached  him  in 
its  naked  guise,  with  no  question  of  Jasper,  of  vengeance, 
of  wrong  for  wrong,  or  of  the  love  for  which  he  had 
done  it.  This  love  was  now  good  and  sweet  to  him  only 
as  he  could  find  a  purity  of  impulse  in  himself  answerable 
to  the  purity  of  hers  ;  to  his  inmost  core  he  felt  soiled  by 
what  he  had  done.  Her  very  caresses  were  a  shame  to 
him.  He  thought  how  she  must  start  away  from  him  if 
she  knew. 


348  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

In  these  moods  he  framed  a  dozen  passionate  confes 
sions  in  which  he  told  her  that  he  was  a  scoundrel  beneath 
the  least  of  her  kindnesses ;  he  said  that  he  had  her  love 
on  false  pretences  ;  that  she  should  know  him — all  of  him 
— to  know  how  unworthy  he  was.  He  said  in  these  con 
fessions  which  were  never  made  that  he  would  go  away ; 
that  they  would  not  meet  again  ;  and  that — at  this  point 
a  crazy  pang  of  jealousy  would  intrude,  and  he  would 
remember  that  he  could  not  leave  her  to  Jasper.  He 
knew  that  she  now  despised  Jasper.  Yet  this  seemed 
possible  or  even  probable. 

In  the  midst  of  this  harassment  of  mind  small  things 
gave  him  pleasure.  It  was  with  a  strange  joy,  for  ex 
ample,  that  he  arranged  the  details  of  borrowing,  on  the 
security  of  the  "  Little  Cipher,"  the  sum  which  Maurice 
owed  Jasper.  He  transacted  the  business,  giving  him  the 
money  that  was  to  deliver  Maurice  from  Jasper,  and  to 
place  Dorothy  forever  beyond  him,  with  a  pleasure  hardly 
diminished  by  the  sense  that  he  was  at  the  same  time 
giving  the  final  sanction  to  his  deed,  and  making  retreat 
impossible. 

He  recognized,  with  a  start,  as  he  stood  by  the  bank 
er's  counter,  the  feeling  which  he  had  accused  in  his 
father.  His  own  perception  of  the  unwisdom,  the  wrong, 
of  reprisal  upon  Jasper,  he  had  played  utterly  false,  and 
he  found  himself  rejoicing  in  having  done  so.  He  knew 
now  the  exultation  his  father  had  felt  in  squaring  himself 
with  Jasper.  Still  more  clearly,  but  sadly,  he  saw  how 
his  father  had  been  led  to  cast  back  in  his  face  his  own 
seeming  ingratitude. 

Ah,  if  he  could  only  get  at  his  father,  they  might 
understand  each  other  now.  His  father  was  the  one  per- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  349 

son  to  whom  he  could  fancy  himself  telling  his  story  un 
reservedly,  if  he  could  only  find  him  and  reconcile  himself 
to  him.  He  did  not  believe  he  would  be  the  surer  that 
his  plea  for  Jasper  had  been  the  false  one  it  would  now 
more  than  ever  seem,  though  he  thought  of  this.  What 
came  to  him  was  that  his  father  was  the  one  man  who 
could  wholly  know  the  goaded  mind  in  which  it  had  come 
to  him  that  he  could  not  let  Jasper  win  his  love  from 
him,  too. 

The  thought  made  the  discovery  of  his  father's  where 
abouts  even  more  than  the  immediate  necessity  it  had  been 
for  the  past  two  months.  He  enjoyed  the  reflection  that 
Jasper  would  now  be  indirectly  furnishing  him  with  the 
money  for  lack  of  which  he  had  hitherto  failed  to  find 
him.  He  said  to  himself  that  he  would  start  soon — at 
once ;  and  then  he  recalled  that  he  had  promised  himself 
to  remain  in  Maverick  until  Jasper's  return.  If  Jasper 
should  ever  come  to  know  what  he  had  done,  he  did  not 
wish  to  give  it  to  him  to  say  that  he  had  dodged  away. 
He  wished  to  face  him.  He  was  not  ashamed  of  what  he 
had  done — not,  at  least,  before  Jasper. 

He  did  not  find  his  feeling  about  it,  even  as  it  touched 
Dorothy,  continuous.  There  were  odd  lapses  in  it,  fol 
lowed  by  quick  returns  of  remorse.  It  would  die  away 
from  him  in  good  hours,  when  they  talked  together,  and 
grow  a  callous  lump  which  he  was  conscious  of  carrying 
about  in  his  bosom  as  a  burden ;  but  he  was  not  constantly 
sure  of  its  meaning.  At  these  times  his  willingness  to 
enjoy  the  nearest  pleasure,  his  liking  for  the  comfortable, 
the  agreeable  arrangement,  minded  him  to  keep  it  out 
of  his  sight,  if  he  could,  and  forget  it.  Surely  he  had  a 
right  to  his  hardly  won  bliss ;  and  if  he  had  not,  no 


350  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

one  was  likely  to  be  benefited  by  any  foolish  asceticism 
about  it,  unless,  indeed,  Jasper,  whose  enjoyment  of  his 
brother's  incapacity  to  taste  the  joy  he  had  snatched 
from  him,  being  imagined,  helped  Philip  to  forget  man 
fully. 

They  sometimes  talked  of  Jasper  to  make  sure  of  their 
possession  of  each  other;  they  even  indulged  a  wonder 
why  he  did  not  return,  though,  in  their  hearts,  neither 
wished  his  return.  They  felt  instinctively  that  his  return 
would  set  a  period  to  their  present  state ;  their  next  state 
might  be  better  or  worse,  but  it  would  not  be  the  same. 
The  first  days  of  the  betrothal  come  but  once,  and  they 
hedged  them  jealously  from  the  world.  Dorothy  would 
not  let  him  make  their  engagement  known  beyond  the 
littls  company  of  their  friends,  and  made  him  pledge  each 
of  them  to  secrecy,  for  a  time  yet.  She  said  she  knew  it 
must  come ;  she  would  have  to  be  congratulated ;  she 
would  have  to  see  her  engagement  take  its  place  among 
the  gossip  of  the  town,  in  the  news  of  the  day :  but  she 
was  not  ready  for  that  yet.  It  was  only  one  degree  from 
having  to  feel,  as  she  knew  she  would  be  made  to  feel,  that 
a  marriage  was  just  a  marriage — an  interesting  public 
function,  surrounded  by  the  usual  circumstance  of  ushers, 
orange  flowers,  white  silk,  carriages,  subdued  whispers, 
rapturous  comment,  Lohengrin,  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 
She  might  as  well  be  a  statistic,  and  have  done  with  it. 
She  admitted  that  their  marriage  would  be  in  the  census ; 
but  she  was  willing  to  postpone  her  sense  of  its  civic 
importance. 

Sometimes  in  their  rides  long  silences  would  fall,  and 
perhaps  they  communicated  with  each  other  most  fully  in 
these.  But  they  liked  to  speak  of  the  time  when  a  little 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  351 

turn,  one  way  or  the  other,  might  have  lost  them  to  each 
other,  as  it  seemed. 

Dorothy  would  not  admit  that  any  chance  could  have 
been  strong  enough  really  to  keep  them  apart;  upon 
which  Philip  asked  her  what  she  said  to  the  chance  which 
she  had  given  herself  to  accept  Jasper. 

"Suppose  I  hadn't  come  along?  Suppose  Vertner 
hadn't  let  on  what  an  extra-abused  fellow  I  was  ?  It's 
even  betting  what  answer  he  would  have  got." 

"  Well,  he  hasn't  come  back  for  it,"  suggested  Dor 
othy. 

"No;  but  if  he  had?" 

"  I  gave  myself  a  week,"  she  said  demurely. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you  gave  me  a  week  ?  Take  care  ! 
I  sha'n't  believe  that  you  were  spending  all  your  time  dis^ 
liking  my  part  in  the  row  with  Jasper." 

"  Oh,  you  may  believe  what  you  like,"  she  rejoined, 
flicking  her  horse  with  the  quirt  Philip  had  given  her. 

But,  at  another  time,  when  they  were  sitting  before 
the  fire  in  her  own  home,  she  told  him  that  it  was  really 
he  who  had  gone  nearest  to  make  the  impossibility  of 
their  not  coming  together  possible.  What  did  he  say  to 
the  extreme  folly  of  telling  a  young  woman  he  loved  her, 
and  asking  her  in  the  same  moment  to  understand  that 
the  fact  wasn't  to  count?  To  be  sure,  he  had  suddenly 
thought  better  of  this  absurdity.  It  was  a  great  point  that 
he  had  thought  better  of  it.  But  why? 

A  sick  feeling  stole  over  Philip  as  he  parried  this 
question,  so  obvious,  so  just,  for  the  dozenth  time,  with  a 
weary  joke.  It  reappeared  with  the  haunting  effect  of  a 
threat.  Must  this  ghost  always  stand  at  his  .  elbow  ? 

Might  he  not  better  tell  her  the  whole  story  of  his  temp- 
23 


352  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

tation  and  his  fall,  and  throw  herself  on  her  mercy,  and 
her  belief  in  him  ? 

But  he  remembered  Maurice,  who  would  be  so  far  too 
much  involved  in  anything  he  might  try  to  say.  He  could 
not  wound  the  faith  in  her  father,  which  he  had  given  so 
much  to  preserve.  He  wished  that  Maurice  would  at 
least  take  the  action  which  was  now  a  matter  of  days,  and 
which  could  not  be  much  longer  postponed.  And  he 
wished  Jasper  would  return.  There  came  a  point  in  all 
threatening  discomforts  where  all  his  thoughts  and  desires 
about  them  resolved  themselves  into  a  single  longing  to 
have  done  with  them. 

When  he  and"  Maurice  met  in  Dorothy's  presence,  now, 
they  avoided  each  other's  eye.  Philip  felt  degraded  by 
their  common  secret.  He  saw  that  he  must  tell  Dorothy 
what  he  had  done  if  the  present  situation  did  not  come 
to  an  end  soon  of  itself. 


XXVI. 

MAKGAKET  clung  to  her  husband,  as  Jasper  left  them 
and  took  the  path  back  into  the  woods.  She  looked  wist 
fully  into  his  eyes.  "  Tell  me  it  isn't  true ! "  she  whis 
pered  huskily.  "  Say  that  he  is  wrong !  He  would  say 
his  worst.  I  know  that.  0  James,  tell  me  that  it  isn't 
true ! " 

Deed  was  silent.  He  watched  Jasper's  form  slowly 
disappearing  among  the  pines,  in  the  twilight,  with  blaz 
ing  eyes.  He  took  his  breath  shortly. 

"True?"  he  asked  from  his  absorption.     He  stroked 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  353 

her  head  absently.  "What  true,  dear?  Scoundrel!"  he 
muttered. 

"  What  he  said — that  you — you — ?" 

"  That  I  pledged  bonds  left  with  me  in  trust  to  raise 
money  to  pay  Philip  ?  Yes ;  it's  true,"  he  said,  clenching 
his  hands,  and  staring  over  her  head  at  the  point  where 
Jasper  had  vanished  among  the  trees.  He  was  less  than 
half  conscious  of  making  the  confession,  which  he  had 
considered  so  often  and  painfully ;  but  at  her  shrinking 
from  him  he  knew  that  he  had  told  her,  and  that  he  was 
alone  with  her  knowledge  of  him.  "  Do  you  object?"  he 
asked  abruptly. 

The  soreness  of  his  spirit  spoke.  Every  nerve  in  him 
ached  from  the  interview  which  he  had  just  cut  short 
fiercely  with  a  word. 

She  could  have  comforted  him,  without  a  backward 
look  on  the  story  Jasper  had  told,  and  he  would  have 
blessed  her ;  and,  later,  he  would  have  humbled  himself 
before  her  with  the  truth.  At  that  moment  the  hand  of 
pure  kindness  must  have  been  a  pain,  and  the  probe,  even 
in  the  hands  of  love,  was  torture.  "  Do  you  object  ?  "  he 
repeated,  as  she  did  not  answer. 

"  Object  ?  "  she  cried.     "  0  my  husband  ! " 

She  saw  that  he  was  in  the  mood  when  he  must  be 
hard  with  the  person  nearest  him.  She  had  just  seen 
him  tormented  beyond  endurance.  She  meant  to  be  gen 
tle,  to  be  tolerant ;  but  she  could  not  be  silent. 

"  I  see,"  exclaimed  Deed.  "  You  needn't  say  it. 
Well,  the  law  objects,  too.  You  are  in  excellent  com 
pany." 

"  0  James,  how  should  I  care  for  that !  You  were  in 
the  right.  I  believe  it.  I  only  ask  you  to  say  it,  and  I 


354  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

will  believe  you.  Can't  you  see  that  I  can't  bear  to  think 
you  in  the  wrong  ?  " 

"Ah,  yes,"  he  exclaimed  sadly.  "  You  care  too  much 
for  the  right  to  bear  to  think  that." 

"  That  is  true,"  she  said  simply.  "  I  don't  think  you 
could  want  me  to  deny  that,  James,  though  you  say  it  as 
if  it  were  an  accusation.  You  mean  that  I  care  for  that 
first,  and  then  for  you.  I  care  for  you  as  you  are  right, 
the  right.  Can't  you  see  how  it's  all  the  same  thing? 
You  have  become  my  right.  0  James,  didn't  I  take  you 
for  that  in  marrying  you  ?  " 

"  Reserving  your  own  definitions,"  said  Deed,  bitterly. 

"  I  don't  define,"  she  murmured  entreatingly ;  "  I  only 
ask  you  to  say." 

"  And  I  can't  say.  Nothing  that  I  could  say  could 
make  what  I  have  done  seem  right  to  your  ideas  of  right. 
You  would  be  forced  to  condemn  just  as  I  should  be  eter 
nally  forced  to  do  it,  in  the  same  situation.  It's  tempera 
ment  ;  it's  character  !  "  he  cried  miserably. 

The  twilight  had  deepened  during  the  brief  minutes 
in  which  Jasper  had  told  his  father  that  he  knew  the 
secret  of  the  hypothecation  of  Iron  Silver  stock  at  Lead- 
ville,  and  had  given  him  his  choice  between  retreat  from 
the  sale  to  Snell,  and  an  immediate  publication  of  the 
facts  of  the  hypothecation  in  the  newspapers.  He  had 
taken  his  scornful  answer  away  with  him  into  the  dusk. 
The  darkness  was  now  falling  about  them,  touched  only 
by  the  last  reluctances  of  the  day,  which  the  reflected 
glimmer  from  the  white  hills  detained  vaguely  still. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  assented  Margaret ;  "  I  know.  But  what 
can  matter  if  we  love  each  other — if  we  trust  each 
other  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  355 

"  Trust,  Margaret !  Did  you  trust  me  when  I  sold  the 
ranch  away  from  this  fellow  ?  Would  you  trust  me  now, 
if  I  were  to  tell  you  how  I  used  this  mining  stock  out  of 
a  need  of  the  same  kind  ?  I  am  made  that  way,  Margaret. 
I  couldn't  have  helped  doing  it  any  more  than  you  can 
help  loathing  it  now,"  he  repeated. 

"  I  don't  loathe  it,"  she  said  patiently.  "  I  am  sorry 
— sorry.  What  you  say  about  the  other — yes,  I  see,  now, 
that  I  was  wrong,  or  unhappy,  or — I  don't  know  what — 
in  my  way  of  asking  you  not  to  do  that.  Perhaps  I  shall 
never  be  able  to  find  words  or  ways — whatever  it  is  with 
which  other  women  explain  such  things,"  she  went  on, 
with  a  little  note  of  humility  in  her  voice  which  touched 
Deed  indescribably,  and  caused  him  to  take  her  hand  in 
his  in  a  quick  pressure  as  she  stole  it  gently,  almost  tim 
idly,  towards  him.  "  But,  James,"  she  continued  quickly, 
"  we  were  not  married  then.  I  am  your  wife  now.  That 
has  changed  everything.  I  can't  judge  you.  I  am  part 
of  you.  If  you  have  done  what — what  he  said,  the  error, 
the  sin,  if  there  is  any,  is  mine,  too.  Let  us  help  each 
other  about  it,  James.  Tell  me,  how  was  it  ?  " 

The  moon  stole  an  edge  above  the  summit  of  Monk's 
Head,  etching  the  dusky  outline  of  the  mountain  against 
its  peeping  disk.  The  light  kindled  along  the  snowy 
flanks  of  the  opposite  hills,  and  ran  tremulously  into  the 
black  depths  of  the  canon  beyond.  He  told  her  of  the 
means  by  which  he  had  paid  Philip,  as  they  stood  in  the 
broadening  glow. 

"  But  you  meant  to  do  no  wrong,"  she  said  as  he 
finished. 

"  Oh,  meant ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  Do  you  think  they 
will  care  at  Leadville  what  I  meant  to  do  ?  " 


356  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Perhaps  not,"  she  said,  "  but  I  care.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  the  chance  of  this  snow,  which  might  have  hap 
pened  to  any  one,  you  would  have  sold  the  'Lady  Boun 
tiful  '  to  those  people  at  Burro  Peak,  and  no  one  would 
have  been  the  worse  for  what  you  did."  She  said  this 
stoutly,  as  much  by  way  of  trying  to  believe  it  for  herself 
as  to  comfort  him.  But  her  conscience  forced  her  to  add 
immediately,  "  But  it  was  an  awful  mistake — it  was — it 
was  not  right,  was  it,  James  ?  "  She  looked  up  into  his 
eyes,  questioning  him  doubtfully,  as  if  she  had  never 
known  days  in  which  problems  like  this  were  decided 
with  instinctive  confidence  within  her  own  breast. 

"  No,  Margaret ;  no.  It  was  like  other  things — a  mud 
dle  of  right  and  wrong,  I  suppose ;  but  certainly  not  right. 
Perhaps  I  might  say  for  what  I  did  that  it  wouldn't  be 
fair  to  judge  it  in  the  gross.  But  that's  the  best  I  could 
say.  I  did  it  because  I  had  to,  Margaret.  I  didn't  mean 
one  thing  or  the  other,  as  you  call  it.  The  position  in 
which  Philip  placed  me  was  intolerable.  I  changed  it ;  I 
righted  it.  God  knows  with  what  show  of  justice."  He 
turned  away.  They  stood  for  a  moment  silent.  Then  he 
said  :  "  Does  it  not  seem  my  destiny,  Margaret  dear,  to 
hurt  you,  and  always  at  the  tenderest  point  ?  I  seem  to 
have  to  do  the  things  which  must  wound  you  deepest,  and 
then  to  have  to  hurt  you  deeper  by  wickedly  trying  to 
make  you  pay  for  my  error  through  your  sensitiveness  to 
it.  From  the  hour  that  I  borrowed  money  at  Leadville 
on  those  bonds  which  didn't  belong  to  me,  I  have  been 
ashamed  to  face  myself ;  what  I  did  has  seemed  to  debase 
me  deeper  and  deeper  every  day.  I  have  hated  myself. 
I  have  wished  to  tell  you.  But  when  you  question  my 
act,  ever  so  gently,  I  must  make  you  suffer  for  my  pain 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  357 

about  it.  It  is  because  I  know  the  tilings  I  do  for  what 
they  are  that  I  can't  bear  your  sure  eyes  on  them.  If  I 
believed  myself  as  much  in  the  right  as  I  am  always  ready 
to  say  I  am,  I  could  not  shrink  from  your  brave  judg 
ments." 

"  0  James,  it  isn't  for  me  to  judge.  But,  don't  you 
see,  dear — what  you  say  gives  me  courage  to  ask — that —  " 
she  hesitated. 

"  What,  Margaret  ?  "  he  asked  gently. 

"  That — that  all  you  have  done — all  that  you  have 
been  led  to  do  since  Jasper  turned  false,  is  all  of  one 
piece,  really  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Deed,  gravely ;  "  I  don't  see  that." 

"  But  I  do  !  0  James,"  she  cried,  "  what  you  did  to 
Jasper  was  wrong — wrong  from  the  beginning  !  " 

Deed  frowned  heavily.  "  Margaret !  I  thought  you —  " 
He  bit  his  lip. 

"  That  I  said  I  was  mistaken  in  that  ?  In  the  way  I 
chose  to  make  you  feel  what  I  felt — yes.  But  in  my  feel 
ing  about  it — oh,  no,  no,  I  was  right ;  and  if  in  nothing 
else,  then  right  in  my  instinct  that  it  was  wrong  for  you  I 
Poor  James !  It  has  been  wrong,  has  it  not  ? "  She 
slipped  her  hand  within  his  arm.  He  dropped  the  arm, 
and  looked  away  towards  the  gilded  white  hills.  But  she 
went  on,  undaunted.  "  We  have  tried  to  cover  it  up  in 
our.  happiness,  these  last  few  weeks.  But  it's  true ;  and  I 
see  now — I'm  sure  that  you  see  now — that  we  must  face 
it.  Do  you  think  I  don't  understand  how,  having  done 
what  you  did  with  Jasper,  what  you  did  with  Philip  had 
to  follow  ?  It  was  that  I  feared  for  you — all  the  endless 
consequences,  all  the  suffering,  all  the  remorse,  all  the 
snarl  of  wrong.  I  feared  them  for  you,  James,  because 


358  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

I  knew  you — because — "  her  hand  stole  into  his,  and  this 
time  he  held  it  fast — "  I  loved  you ;  and  because  I  saw, 
oh,  so  clearly,  how  it  would  all  be  worse  for  you  than  for 
another  man — how  you  would  make  it  worse,  because  you 
would  be  trying  always  to  burst  your  way  through  the 
misery ;  and  because  you  would  suffer  more  than  other 
men  from  your  failure,  and — and  your  wounds.  It  was 
that  that  forced  me  to  ask  you  not  to  do  it ;  and  it's  that 
that  makes  me  ask  you  now,  James,  to  undo  it.  Don't 
speak  !  Don't  say  you  won't  or  can't.  You  can,  James, 
and  you  must  I  Can  you  wish  to  be  subject  forever  to 
such  attacks?  Jasper  has  to  make  them.  They  are -in 
his  nature ;  and  they  are  part  of  the  sure  result  of  what 
you  did,"  she  said  bravely.  She  was  launched  now,  and 
did  not  care  what  she  said.  "  What  you  did  to  right 
yourself  with  Philip  was  wrong,  of  course ;  but  it  was  not 
the  first  nor  the  chief  wrong."  She  caressed  his  shoulder 
vaguely  with  the  arm  she  ran  about  his  neck.  "  What 
ever  you  did,  it  all  came  from  the  other.  It  couldn't  have 
happened  if  the  other  hadn't.  And  we  must  go  back  to 
that.  I  see  now  that  we  have  been  mistaken  in  pretend 
ing  to  each  other  that  that  question  is  dead,  and  all  its 
consequences  buried.  It  can  never  die,  James,  until  we 
face  it  together,  and  do  what  we  still  can."  He  turned 
and  looked  into  her  pleading  face.  "  It  lives  between 
Jasper  and  you,  and  will  always  live  until  we  have  the 
courage  to  give  up  our  wrongful  right ;  it  lives  between 
Philip  and  you,  and  perhaps  that  is  past  help, — perhaps 
that  is  to  be  our  punishment, — but  worse,  mucn  worse,  it 
lives  between  tis,  James ;  and  we  shall  never  be  happy 
until  it  is  dead  and  out  of  sight.  Oh,  I  have  been  think 
ing  while  we  have  been  standing  here  !  I  have  been  see- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  359 

ing,  more  than  ever  before,  how  different  we  are,  how  hard 
it  will  be,  always,  for  us  to  understand  each  other,  to  make 
allowance,  to  remember  that  we  love  each  other,  and  to 
keep  that  uppermost.  But  I  have  become  sure  that 
never,  for  either  of  us,  is  there  to  be  peace  until  this  is 
made  right." 

Deed  drew  her  to  him,  and  folded  her  in  his  arms. 
"  My  wise,  good  Margaret !  "  he  said.  "  My  gentle,  sweet, 
just  girl !  You  said  a  little  while  ago  that  I  was  your 
right — that  you  had  taken  me  for  that.  But  you  see,  now, 
how  I  could  never  be  that.  My  right  is  personal,  whim 
sical,  fantastic,  brutal,  selfish.  I  construct  it  myself.  I 
take  it  habitually,  as  if  it  were  the  one  right  in  the  world, 
and  as  if  it  might  not  be  the  wrong  of  a  dozen  other  peo 
ple.  It  is  you  who  must  be  my  right  for  the  future ;  and 
I  will  obey  it  humbly.  Your  right  is  certain  because  it  is 
not  yours — because  it  is  the  right  of  others.  I  will  do 
what  you  say,  Margaret." 

He  bent  and  kissed  her.  Margaret  touched  her  eyes 
hastily  with  her  handkerchief.  "And  will  you — will  you 
restore  the  ranch  to  Jasper  ?  Will  you  give  him  back  his 
share?" 

Deed's  brow  knit  darkly.  "  My  girl,  my  girl,"  he  ex 
claimed  in  sadness,  "  you  don't  know  what  you  ask  ! " 

"  But  you  would  do  that,  surely.  You  would  not  hesi 
tate  now,  would  you,  for  any  feeling  of — of — " 

Deed  shook  his  head  bitterly.  "  Is  it  a  light  feeling  ? 
Do  you  think  I  could  do  it?  0  Margaret,  you  don't 
think  !  "  An  inflection  of  reproach  stole  into  his  voice. 

Her  ear  did  not  fail  to  note  it.  But  she  said  :  "  I  do  ! 
I  do !  It  is  because  I  think — and  for  you — that  I  beg  it 
of  you." 


360  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

Her  husband  bit  his  lip.  "  It's  preposterous,  Marga 
ret.  Ask  something  reasonable.  Would  you  have  me 
humble  myself  before  Jasper,  now,  after  all  that  has 
passed — after  to-day  ?  Would  you  have  me  go  to  him, — 
his  father, — confess  that  I  have  been  in  the  wrong  from 
the  beginning,  and  beg  his  permission  to  restore,  to  give 
back,  what  I  stole  from  him  ?  I  should  be  lying.  I  don't 
believe  him  in  the  right ;  I  believe  him  terribly  in  the 
wrong.  But,  besides,  see  what  he  must  think — that  I  do 
it  in  fear  of  his  vile  threat !  Could  you  really  wish  that 
humiliation  for  me,  Margaret?  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  No ;  we  must  wait,  I  see.  We  must  make  the  other 
right.  Then  this  will  come  right  of  itself.  You  must 
go  back,"  she  said.  "  You  must  find  your  way  to  Lead- 
ville  the  moment  this  snow  releases  us,  and  restore  what 
you  have  borrowed." 

"  Borrowed  ?  Do  you  think  it  is  by  that  word  they 
will  know  what  I  did  at  Leadville?  It  will  be  a  harsher 
word,  Margaret — a  word  with  a  penalty." 

"  Well,  then,"  returned  she,  with  a  simplicity  which  at 
once  appalled  and  enchanted  him,  "  you  must  go  back  and 
make  it  right  on  those  terms." 

He  stared  at  her  fascinated.  "  I  will ! "  he  said  at 
last. 

"I  don't  mean  to  urge  you  to  anything  your  own 
judgment  doesn't  approve,"  she  said,  temporizing,  as  even 
a  strong  woman  must  before  consequences  which  are  to 
be  wrought  out  beyond  her  sight  in  the  man's  world. 

"  No,  no !  It  has  been  in  my  own  mind  a  long  time. 
I  would  have  done  it  gladly  long  ago  if  I  could  have  got 
out  of  this  prison,  and  could  have  believed  that  I  had  a 
ris^ht  to  commit  you  to  what  must  follow.  I  must  have 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  361 

my  own  respect  back  again,  Margaret.  You  are  right. 
I  will  go  to  Leadville  as  soon  as  we  can  get  away  from 
this  place,  if  Jasper  does  not  contrive  that  I  shall  go  earlier. 
And  I  will  take  the  consequences." 

"  And  then — "  She  looked  up  into  his  eyes  confi 
dently,  joyfully. 

"  You  mean  Jasper  ? "  he  asked,  frowning.  She 
nodded.  He  shook  his  head. 


XXVII. 

BEATEICE  folded  Margaret  in  her  arms,  and  kissed 
her  repeatedly,  and  took  off  her  cloak,  and  asked  her 
where  she  had  been,  when  Deed  brought  her  to  the  house 
one  evening  a  week  later.  She  said  that  Ned  was  down 
town,  and  Mr.  Deed  was  not  to  think  of  going  on  by  the 
nine  o'clock  train  to  Leadville.  She  was  charmed  to  keep 
Margaret  while  he  went  on ;  but  he  must  stay,  too,  for 
the  night,  at  least.  Ned  would  be  back  soon,  and  he  was 
so  anxious  to  see  him. 

As  she  spoke  Beatrice  glanced  from  one  to  the  other. 
In  Margaret's  face  she  thought  she  saw  some  of  what  she 
had  expected — a  development,  a  softening,  an  effect  like 
that  which  photographers  get  from  the  process  they  call 
"toning."  It  was  not  merely  that  usual  though  inde 
scribable  difference  which  distinguishes  the  matron,  how 
ever  recent,  from  the  maid  ;  Margaret  had  changed  almost 
in  proportion  to  the  area  she  had  offered  for  change, 
almost  in  proportion  to  what  Beatrice  had  always  called 
to  herself  her  "  unmarriageableness."  What  she  saw  made 


362  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

her  retract  silently  some  things  she  had  said  to  Vertner, 
but  still  left  her  wondering.  Had  Margaret  contrived  to 
attune  herself  to  her  husband,  or  had  he,  feeling  the  sacri 
fice  she  had  made  in  coming  to  him,  at  last,  after  what 
had  happened,  made  the  history  of  his  sex  memorable  by 
shaping  himself  to  her?  Did  they  get  along ?  That  was 
what  she  asked  herself.  She  had  decided  that  they  did 
(Deed's  face  looked  strangely  sad  and  worn ;  but  that  was, 
no  doubt,  the  other  matter),  as  she  intercepted  his  answer 
to  a  glance  from  Margaret  in  the  pause  which  fell  at  her 
hospitable  entreaty ;  and  yet —  She  went  back  to  her 
old  feeling  that  the  difference  between  them  was'  too 
irreconcilable,  and  that  Margaret,  of  all  persons,  was  the 
last  to  be  able  to  reconcile  it  (it  was  always  the  woman 
who  had  to  play  that  part  in  a  marriage,  and  when  the 
woman  was  wrong  it  was  hopeless).  She  said,  as  these 
thoughts  passed  through  her  mind,  that  they  had  been 
greatly  concerned  lately  when  no  one  heard  from  them. 

Deed  said  yes,  they  had  been  snowed  up.  They  had 
been  unable  to  get  out;  they  had  feared  their  friends 
would  be  anxious.  He  gave  this  explanation  like  a  lesson 
learned  by  rote.  He  was  conscious  that  people  would 
be  curious ;  it  was  necessary  to  supply  an  explanation  for 
current  use,  and  the  simpler  it  was,  and  the  sooner  made, 
the  better.  Margaret  glanced  quickly  at  him  as  he  spoke. 

He  would  not  take  off  his  overcoat  in  response  to 
Beatrice's  entreaties,  and  in  a  few  moments  rose,  and 
made  his  farewell.  Margaret  followed  him  into  the  hall 
way.  She  threw  her  arms  about  his  neck. 

"  0  James,"  she  begged,  through  the  lump  that  hung 
in  her  throat,  "  are  we  doing  right  ?  Or — no ;  of  course 
we  are  doing  right — but  do  you  think — " 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  363 

"  Margaret ! "  exclaimed  he,  reproachfully.  He  took 
down  her  hands,  and  gazed  into  her  eyes  by  the  dim  light 
of  the  hall-lamp,  under  which  they  stood.  "  It  isn't  you 
who  persuade  me  to  falter,  is  it? " 

"  No,  no.  But  it  is  so  easy  to  persuade.  It  is  you 
who  have  to  act — to  suffer.  Perhaps  I  am  wrong.  Oh, 
think  ! " 

"  I  have  thought,"  he  said  soberly.  "  You  are  right. 
We  are  both  right.  We  cannot  do  otherwise.  Tell  me, 
dearest,"  he  whispered,  stooping  to  her,  "  can  we  ?  "  Their 
eyes  confronted  in  a  look  in  which  each  seemed  to  search 
the  other's  soul. 

She  turned  away  choking.  "  Go !  go  ! "  she  cried  in 
a  stifled  voice.  She  caught  him  to  her,  and  kissed  him 
once,  twice,  and  held  him  to  her  in  a  ravenous  embrace, 
from  which  it  seemed  she  would  never  let  him  go.  Then 
suddenly  she  pushed  him  away,  and,  putting  her  hands  to 
her  face,  ran  into  the  room  where  Beatrice  awaited  her. 

It  was  finally  because  she  was  ashamed  of  her  coward 
ice  that  she  forced  herself  to  look  over  the  "  Maverick 
Sentinel "  the  next  morning.  She  glanced  at  the  head 
lines  with  a  cowering  heart ;  and  when  she  found  noth 
ing  in  them  beyond  the  usual  budget  of  snow-slides, 
murder  trials,  Washington  gossip,  European  war-clouds, 
local  news,  mining  and  cattle  notes,  booms,  and  rumours 
of  booms,  she  began  to  search  again  incredulously.  Could 
it  be  that  Jasper  had  held  his  hand  ?  She  asked  Vertner, 
in  as  steady  a  voice  as  she  could  command, — they  were  at 
breakfast, — if  Mr.  Jasper  Deed  was  in  town. 

"No,"  said  Vertner.  "Want  to  see  him?"  He 
smiled  over  at  her,  unscrupulously.  She  shook  her  head, 


364  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

without  smiling.  "  No,"  he  repeated ;  "  he  isn't  in  town, 
and  it's  even  up  when  he  will  be.  He  was  going  to  be 
back  in  a  week  when  he  started, — that  was  the  word  he 
left, — and  there  was  plenty  to  call  him  back.  But  it's 
nearer  ten  days,  and  no  one's  heard  anything  of  him.  I 
did  think  some  of  organizing  a  search  expedition  to  go 
and  find  him  one  of  these  days  when  business  was  slack, 
but  come  to  talk  to  the  fellows  in  town  about  it,  there 
seemed  to  be  a  general  agreement  that  they  hadn't  lost 
Jasper  Deed.  I  didn't  know  as  I  had  myself,  so  I  let  it 
drop.  But  if  you  want  to  see  him — "  he  offered,  with 
twinkling  eyes. 

"  No,  no,"  she  said.  And  then  she  told  him — there 
could  be  no  harm  if  she  did  not  tell  his  errand — of  the 
visit  he  had  paid  them  at  Mineral  Spings.  Vertner 
pricked  up  his  ears  at  the  first  words,  and,  at  the  end  of 
her  recital,  was  leaning  forward  with  his  face  supported 
between  hia  hands,  listening  in  unconscious  absorption. 
As  she  finished,  he  emitted  a  little  whistle. 

"  What  a  fellow ! "  he  exclaimed  under  his  breath. 
"  WJmt  a  fellow  !  Snow  so  deep  the  drummers  didn't  try 
to  get  out,  you  say  ?  Pass  blocked  !  Everything  battened 
down  for  the  winter !  Drifts,  probably,  until  you  couldn't 
rest.  And  that  fellow  fought  his  way  over  into  the 
Springs  and  saw  Deed  !  My  !  my !  but  there  was  a  rus 
tler  lost  to  the  honest  paths  of  speculation  when  that 
remarkable  young  man  went  into  the  business  of  being  a 
confounded  scoundrel !  Like  to  have  him  in  partnership 
with  me  for  a  year  with  his  claws  cut.  Wouldn't  we 
make  this  old  Centennial  State  hum !  But  what's  be 
come  of  him  ?  That's  what  I  want  to  know.  I  believe  I 
shall  have  to  go  after  him,  now.  We  can't  leave  a  man 


BENEFITS    FORGOT.  365 

with  all  that  sand  to  die  in  a  snow-drift.  Come  to  think 
of  it,  there  might  be  a  chance  to  reform  him  if  we  could 
meet  in  a  snow-drift — he  underneath,  and  I  on  top — 
with  a  whiskey-flask.  It  would  be  a  pretty  triumph,  lead 
ing  him  home  captive,  warranted  kind  and  gentle,  and 
trained  to  go  in  harness.  What  a  scoundrel !  I'm  afraid 
he  made  Deed  unhappy,"  he  said  suddenly. 

Vertner  had  executed  a  circumscribed  war-dance  in 
their  bedroom  when  Beatrice  had  told  him  of  Deed's 
safety,  on  his  return  the  night  before.  He  had  said  that 
Deed  was  a  fraud  not  to  wait ;  and  then  had  said  that  he 
should  start  for  Leadville  in  the  morning  to  hunt  him  up. 
He  had  something  to  tell  him.  But  in  the  morning,  when 
Beatrice  asked  him  if  «he  should  pack  his  bag,  he  told  her 
that  he  had  decided  not  to  go — not  to-day,  anyway.  Deed 
would  probably  find  out  at  Leadville  for  himself  what  he 
had  to  tell  him,  and  it  would  be  all  the  better. 

Margaret's  eyes  filled  with  tears  alarmingly  at  his  sug 
gestion,  and  he  shied  hastily  away  from  it,  and  asked  her 
if  she  wouldn't  go  with  them  on  a  little  picnic  they  had 
arranged  for  that  day.  They  were  all  going  to  the  Iron 
Mine.  Oh,  yes ;  certainly  she  would  go.  But  there  was 
no  question  about  it.  Margaret  protested.  It  seemed 
wicked  to  be  enjoying  herself,  or  even  to  permit  herself 
the  color  of  enjoyment,  while  Deed  was  away  from  her 
on  such  an  errand.  But  Beatrice's  assurance  to  Vertner 
that  she  would  go,  and  the  "  talking  to  "  which  Beatrice 
gave  her  when  he  had  left  them,  silenced  her. 

She  was  full  of  her  own  thoughts  as  she  prepared  for 
the  long  drive  to  the  Iron  Mine ;  and  they  were  not  all  of 
Deed  in  Leadville. 

She  must  meet  people  since  she  had  come  back.    Some 


366  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

of  those  she  had  known  during  her  earlier  stay  were  sure 
to  be  of  the  picnic  party.  She  must  bear  to  guess  the 
comment  that  had  gone  on  in  her  absence  from  the  looks 
she  would  receive.  Ah,  well,  she  did  not  care.  There 
were  other  things  to  think  of.  Yet  she  caught  herself 
wondering  if  Dr.  Ernfield  would  be  riding  with  them  to 
Iron  Mine.  She  had  not  dared  to  ask  Beatrice  who  was 
going ;  she  had  not  even  asked  how  he  was,  though  she 
wished  much  to  know. 

She  recalled  the  occurrences  of  her  former  stay  in 
Maverick,  one  by  one.  Some  of  them — the  days  of  her 
courtship,  for  example,  when  Deed  and  she  had  seen  each 
other  daily,  in  perfect  love  and  confidence — were  sweet 
recollections.  But  others  crowded  these  out.  The  morn 
ing  when  she  had  so  nearly  sacrificed  his  love  for  her 
to  save  him  from  himself,  and  had  failed ;  the  desolate 
days  which  followed, — Ernfield,  her  flight,  her  happy 
flight  from  this  house  to  which  she  had  come  back  again, 
— these  were  haunting  memories. 

It  was  a  beautiful  day.  The  sun  was  shining  with 
that  effect  of  never  having  shone  before,  mingled  with 
the  sober  purpose  of  going  on  shining  just  so  forever, 
which  Colorado  knows,  and  which  all  December  picnics 
should  arrange  for.  The  fact  that  the  entire  sum  of  the 
grey,  or  doubtful,  or  lowering  days  in  the  course  of  a 
Colorado  year  would  not  make  up  a  fortnight,  mysteri 
ously  seems  not  to  dull  the  edge  of  one's  pleasure  in  each 
new  sun-soaked  day.  Dorothy  was  saying  something  like 
this  to  Philip  as  they  rode  out  together  to  meet  the  party. 
Vertner  had  brought  Philip  the  news  of  his  father's  arrival 
in  town,  and  had  had  hard  work,  as  he  told  Beatrice  after 
wards,  to  restrain  him  from  following  Deed  to  Leadville, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

forthwith.  It  was  only  by  representing  the  case  to  Dor 
othy  that  he  had  succeeded  in  keeping  him  for  the  pic 
nic,  he  told  his  wife.  He  did  not  mean  that  he  bad  told 
Dorothy  anything ;  he  had  merely  indicated  to  her  the 
propriety  of  his  remaining,  and  he  had  remained. 

Philip  rode  by  Dorothy's  side  with  a  happy  smile  on 
his  lips.  His  heart  stirred  joyously  in  time  to  the  hoof- 
beats  of  their  horses.  To  know  that  his  father  was  found, 
to  know  that  he  must  by  this  have  learned  that  he  had  a 
loyal  son,  was  cause  enough  for  throwing  up  one's  hat, 
and  to  turn  his  own  trouble  idle  and  foolish.  As  they 
rode,  Dorothy  would  occasionally  look  across  the  space 
between  their  horses  and  smile  with  him ;  and  at  these 
times  a  gleam  of  intelligence,  of  sympathy,  would  light  in 
her  eyes,  which  seemed  to  double  his  happiness.  His  head 
swam  with  it.  He  would  not  talk,  and  Dorothy  also  kept 
silence;  but  when  their  eyes  met,  Philip  thought  how, 
with  every  look,  she  endeared  herself  more  to  him,  and 
how  she  must  make  her  way  into  his  father's  heart.  How 
his  father  would  like  her !  She  should  make  up  for  many 
things  to  him.  She  should  be  a  daughter  to  him,  not  in 
the  conventional  sense,  but  truly.  He  fancied  her  replac 
ing  Jasper  in  his  father's  heart ;  he  imagined  her  atoning 
for  that  loss  in  so  far  as  any  one  could.  He  knew  that 
must  always  remain  an  unhealed  sorrow,  an  incurable  bit 
terness  ;  but  she  could  console  it. 

When  he  met  Margaret  for  the  first  time,  a  few  mo 
ments  later,  he  seemed  to  see  something  in  her  face  which 
told  him  that  his  father  must  already  be  as  happy  as  the 
love  of  woman  could  make  him.  He  had  had  his  one 
glimpse  of  her  on  the  staircase  of  the  hotel  at  Leadville, 
as  she  was  leaving  it,  a  bride;  but  her  face  had  been 
24 


368  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

veiled.  He  saw  instantly  that  she  was  good.  She  was 
such  a  woman  as  he  could  fancy  his  father  caring  for. 
He  saw  why  he  had  married  her.  These  perceptions 
passed  through  his  miud  rapidly  as  he  flung  himself  from 
his  horse,  and  took  her  hand  warmly. 

Margaret  had  imagined  this  meeting.  She  supposed 
she  must  speak  to  him ;  but  she  had  intended  to  make  it 
a  formal  matter.  She  could  not  believe  him  as  much  at 
fault  as  her  husband  did ;  but  his  attitude  bound  her,  she 
felt,  and  she  must  be  the  more  careful  since  he  was  not 
by.  Poor  Margaret !  Her  judiciousness  was  always  a 
failure.  It  was  not  less  so  in  this  case,  for  Philip's 
warmth  disarmed  her,  and  with  the  whole  party  halted 
and  looking  on  she  could  not  treat  him  with  obvious  cold 
ness.  She  could  only  say  to  herself  that,  at  least,  it  was 
not  Jasper.  Even  her  husband  could  not  feel  Philip  to 
be  as  much  to  blame  as  his  brother.  And,  before  she 
knew  it,  a  wave  of  tenderness  for  Philip  came  over  her, 
like  the  tenderness  she  had  felt  towards  him  when  Deed, 
for  so  different  a  reason,  had  left  her  before.  He  was  at 
least  his  son.  She  had  not  yet  found  courage  to  glance 
at  him.  She  wondered  if  he  looked  like  him.  She  made 
herself  glance  down  into  his  honest  eyes,  and  suddenly 
believed  in  him.  He  was  like  his  father ;  his  eyes  were 
particularly  like  his.  She  returned  his  hand-clasp. 

"  I  have  hoped  we  should  meet,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  she  murmured  breathlessly. 

"  Will  you  tell  me  how  my  father  is  ?  You  can't  know 
how  anxious  we  have  been  about  him — about  you." 

"  He's  not  well.  He  has  been — he  has  been  troubled. 
You  knew  that  he  had  gone  on  to  Leadville  ?  " 

"  Yes,  yes.     But  he  is  coming  back  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  369 

"  Soon,  I  hope."     She  lowered  her  eyes. 

"  Only  soon.  Then  I  must  run  up.  I  had  hoped  he 
would  be  back  to-morrow.  Vertner  assured  me  that  he 
would." 

"  Oh,  don't  do  that !  "  she  exclaimed  hastily. 

"  Don't  ?  "  he  hesitated.  "  You  mean—  No ;  I  sup 
pose  father  hasn't  forgiven  me,"  he  said  gloomily.  Then, 
with  recovered  buoyancy :  "  But  that's  almost  part  of  his 
fineness,  isn't  it  ?  If  I  had  done  what  he  supposes,  he 
ought  to  hate  me.  But  does  he  still — or,  no,  I  oughtn't  to 
ask  that ;  it  isn't  fair  ;  perhaps  I  ought  not  even  to  have 
spoken  to  you ;  but  I  saw  you.  I  couldn't  help  it.  You 
can't  think  what  finding  father  again  is  to  me — to  all  of 
us.  It's  mixed  up  with  so  many  things.  But  it  doesn't 
need  to  be  mixed  up  with  anything  to  make  me  glad. 
He's  not  like  every  father,  quite,  you  know ;  he's  not  been 
at  all  like  other  fathers  in  his  goodness  to  me.  And  he's 
such  a  man  !  " 

The  tone  in  which  he  said  it  sent  a  thrill  leaping 
through  her  pulses,  and  it  was  hard  for  her  not  to  shout 
what  she  answered  a  moment  later,  in  an  agitated  whis 
per,  struggling  to  control  herself. 

"I  know  your  father,"  she  said.  She  took  a  hand 
from  her  rein,  and  offered  it  to  him,  in  a  torrent  of  feel 
ing  for  which  she  could  find  no  words.  He  caught  the 
hand  in  a  grasp  that  hurt  her  as  he  wrung  it. 

"  I  believe  you  do,"  he  said  almost  reverently. 

The  cavalcade  had  passed  them  as  they  paused  to 
gether.  She  touched  her  horse  and,  with  a  single  glance 
at  him,  started  in  pursuit  of  the  party  at  a  gallop.  Philip 
joined  Dorothy,  and  they  cantered  on  slowly  after  the 
company  together,  talking  of  what  had  happened. 


370  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

They  caught  up  with  the  others  in  the  gorge  making 
into  the  hills  outside  the  town — the  gorge  through  which 
Margaret  and  Ernfield  had  once  ridden  on  their  way  to 
the  neighbouring  summit.  Cutter,  Beatrice,  Yertner, 
Ernfield,  and  Mrs.  Felton  were  among  the  group  in  ad 
vance.  Margaret,  who  had  rejoined  the  company  before 
them,  they  perceived  riding  by  Vertner's  side.  Every  one 
save  Margaret  and  Ernfield  appeared  in  a  festival  mood ; 
and  shouts  and  laughter  echoed  from  wall  to  wall  of  the 
gulch,  and  floated  up  into  the  still,  keen  air,  like  a  kind 
of  offering  to  the  perfection  of  the  day.  Ernfield  was 
with  Beatrice,  far  in  advance,  and  they  saw  him  stoop  to 
her  in  quiet  talk.  Beatrice  would  sometimes  turn  in  her 
saddle,  and  laugh  gaily  at  something  Cutter  and  Mrs.  Fel 
ton,  who  seemed  to  be  having  a  pleasant  time  together, 
would  call  out  from  behind.  But  at  these  times  Ernfield 
did  not  turn.  Philip  guessed  that  he  was  willing  to  avoid 
Margaret's  eye,  and  Margaret,  for  her  part,  kept  in  the 
rear  with  Vertner.  Ernfield  had  joined  the  van  of  the 
cavalcade  after  it  was  in  motion,  and  they  had  not  en 
countered  yet.  Both  were  willing  to  postpone  the  meeting. 

The  gulch  narrowed  presently,  and  forced  them  out  of 
its  bottom  to  a  narrow  path  along  the  ledge  which  hung 
above  it.  Opposite  them  a  gash  in  the  hill,  the  effusion 
of  a  mass  of  green  earth  upon  the  rocky  slope,  an  aban 
doned  cabin,  told  the  familiar  story  of  failure,  the  little 
daily  tragedy  of  disappointment.  The  memory  of  another 
mine,  which  was  always  with  Philip  now,  but  had  seemed 
to  leave  him  in  the  happy  hours  since  he  had  known  his 
father  to  be  found,  returned  upon  him  with  a  fresh  pain. 
It  was  a  richer  mine  of  which  he  was  thinking.  He  had 
been  about  to  say  to  himself  more  fortunate.  But  was  it 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  371 

fortunate  ?  If  he  could  choose,  would  it  not  be  his  wish, 
now,  that  the  ore-bearing  vein  in  the  "  Little  Cipher " 
might  never  have  been  opened  ?  He  could  not  wish  that 
it  should  give  out  now  ;  his  future  had  been  wagered  on  it. 
But  what  would  he  not  have  given  to  know  that  he  had 
dreamed  the  assay,  the  exploration  of  the  mine,  the  finger 
ing  of  the  ore  in  his  own  hands  ?  He  wished  heartily  that 
he  had  never  leased  the  mine  to  the  Ryans,  who  must  go 
blundering  about  and  snatch  a  fortune  out  of  the  bowels 
of  the  earth,  to  show  his  conscience  the  way  to  the  hell  in 
which  it  now  lived. 

"  Poor  fellows !  "  said  Dorothy,  looking  across  at  the 
deserted  mine,  as  they  rode  slowly  along  the  path  in  single 
file.  "  What  work,  what  hopes,  they  must  have  put  into 
that  mine !  It  is  hard,  isn't  it,  to  think  that  where  one 
succeeds  a  thousand  must  fail  ?  It  must  be  so,  I  suppose ; 
but  what  a  price  for  the  success !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  that  these  men — the  men  who  worked 
that  mine — and  others  like  them  all  over  Colorado,  and 
elsewhere,  really  pay  for  the  lucky  fellow's  good  fortune?" 
asked  Philip,  turning  in  his  saddle  (he  was  riding  in  ad 
vance)  to  look  back  at  her.  "  That's  a  hard  thought  for 
the  lucky  fellow,  isn't  it?" 

"  Oh,  no,  Philip ;  I  didn't  mean  that."  She  saw  what 
he  was  thinking  of,  and  hesitated  a  moment  before  trying 
to  say  just  what  she  did  mean.  "  It's  Nature  that  pays. 
I  suppose  we  must  think  that.  The  men  will  feel  that 
they  have  played  against  Nature  and  lost;  and  that  is 
right,  too,  no  doubt.  Some  must  lose ;  the  chances  are 
infinitely  in  favour  of  loss.  Every  one  knows  that  who 
sinks  a  shaft  or  digs  a  tunnel,  I  fancy.  And  then  some 
must  win.  That  is  natural.  The  men  who  fail  don't 


372  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

grudge  the  successes.  I  think  they  like  to  know  of  them. 
It  is  a  comfort  to  them  to  know  that  there  is  some  success 
somewhere.  But  it  lays  a  great  responsibility  on  the  suc 
cessful  ones,  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Philip. 

They  rode  on  in  silence.  The  hoofs  of  their  horses 
seemed  to  make  a  loud  voice  as  they  struck  on  the  rocky 
path.  The  others  had  been  moving  more  rapidly  Avhile 
they  talked,  and  the  hoof-beats  of  the  animals  in  advance, 
as  they  died  away,  seemed  to  leave  them  more  solitary  in 
this  lonely  path  between  the  hills  than  if  a  party  had  not 
been  within  hail. 

"  Philip,"  she  said  softly,  not  guessing  his  thoughts. 

"  Yes." 

"  Wasn't  it  fortunate— Mr.  Cutter  and  I  were  talking 
of  it  the  other  day — that  it  was  the  '  Little  Cipher '  which 
turned  out  so  rich  ?  " 

"  Why  ?  "  asked  Philip,  turning  suddenly  to  face  her 
again. 

"  Why,  only  think  if  it  had  been  the  '  Pay  Ore,'  and 
you  had  been  obliged  to  give  it  up  to  your  brother — after 
— after  all  that  has  happened,  and  after  your  making  it  a 
success.  Fancy  your  having  to  think  that  all  the  work  you 
had  given  to  your  own  mine  had  come  to  nothing ;  and 
the  same  work  in  his  had  brought  him  a  fortune.  Fancy 
your  having  to  know  that  you  had  done  it  for  him.  Why, 
Philip,  when  I  think  of  your  being  forced  to  go  to  him  in 
the  face  of  all  the  wrong  and  suffering  and  insult  he  has 
heaped  on  you,  and  having  to  say — b-r-r-r  ! "  She  shud 
dered  prettily. 

It  had  come.  He  felt  now  as  if  he  had  paltered  and 
doubted  and  hesitated  to  his  shame.  How  could  he  have 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  373 

believed  that  she  would  not  find  a  forgiveness  in  that 
heavenly  sympathy  for  the  means  by  which  he  had  won 
her  ?  These  gentle  words — :the  first  in  comment  on  that 
bitter  situation  which  had  found  their  way  to  any  lips — 
were  like  dew  in  a  thirsty  land  to  him.  She  must  know. 
He  would  not  wrong  her  by  another  moment's  shameful 
silence.  His  secret  choked  him.  Their  love  seemed 
worthless  while  it  remained  between  them. 

"  It  would  have  been  an  odious  position,"  he  said,  with 
an  effort  at  lightness.  "  Perhaps  a  man  might  be  forgiven 
for  shirking  it." 

"  You  mean  he  might  send  some  one  else  to  tell 
him  ?  " 

"  No ;  I  suppose  I  was  thinking  that  he  might  do 
nothing  at  all." 

"  Wait,  and  let  his  brother  find  out,  do  you  mean?" 

"  Well,  yes  ;  something  like  that." 

"  But  that  would  only  be  postponing  it.  His  brother 
would  be  sure  to  learn  of  it  sooner  or  later.  And  then  he 
would  have  his  silence  to  accuse  him  of.  If  one  had  a 
brother  like  Jasper,  I  don't  think  one  would  like  to  give 
him  an  accusation — even  an  accusation  like  that,  where 
no  real  wrong  would  have  been  done  him.  Do  you  ?  " 

"  I  think  I  should  let  him  find  out,"  said  Philip.  He 
was  speaking  with  his  head  half  turned  toward  her,  and 
with  one  hand  resting  on  his  pony's  flank  behind  the  sad 
dle.  This  kept  his  body  swaying  with  the  animal's  for 
ward  stride.  The  others  came  into  sight  for  a  moment 
at  a  bend  in  the  road,  and  vanished  again.  They  probably 
thought  to  do  the  lovers  a  kindness  in  leaving  them  to 
themselves.  "  Even  suppose  he  never  found  out  ?  "  he 
pursued  after  a  moment,  as  he  turned  and  leaned  forward 


374  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

to  adjust  the  pony's  forelock,  which  had  not  been  properly 
smoothed  under  the  head-strap. 

"  But  I  can't  imagine  that.  His  brother  would  hear. 
He  would  know  that  the  strike  had  been  made  in  his 
mine." 

"  He  mightn't  know  which  was  his.  You  can  imagine 
that,  surely." 

Something  in  his  voice  startled  her.  "  Why,  Philip — 
but  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

They  had  emerged  upon  a  vast  open  green  upland,  and 
their  horses  by  a  common  impulse  changed  their  pace  to 
a  canter.  The  others  were  visible  now  far  in  advance, 
upon  the  road  winding  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  be 
tween  the  grassy  acres  of  the  park.  They  cantered  along 
side  by  side  in  the  sunlight,  taking  the  pure  air  of  the 
table-land  on  their  faces. 

The  interval  gave  Philip  time.  But  he  could  not 
think.  Her  smiling  face,  as  she  glanced  towards  him  in 
their  buoyant  flight,  daunted  him.  Would  she  smile  so 
when  he  had  told  her  ?  He  was  suddenly  afraid  to  speak. 

But  as  the  animals  fell  into  a  walk,  "  Suppose  his 
brother  didn't  know,"  he  repeated ;  and  this  time  she  was 
sure  of  the  strange  inflection. 

She  stared  at  him.  "  It  would  be  an  awful  tempta 
tion,"  she  said  under  her  breath.  She  gazed  thoughtfully 
into  his  eyes.  He  dropped  them. 

"  Yes,"  he  said. 

He  kept  his  eyes  upon  the  moving  roadway.  He  felt 
her  glance  upon  him.  She  was  reading  him.  He  knew 
it.  Would  she  never  break  the  silence  ?  Then  at  his  side 
he  heard  a  low  moan — not  like  Dorothy's  voice — a  moan 
of  perception  and  reproach  and  heartbreaking  grief. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  3Y5 

"  Oh ! "  she  murmured  desolately.  "  Oh-h-h  ! "  The 
wail  trembled  from  between  her  trembling  lips;  it  seemed 
torn  from  her  soul.  She  paled.  He  saw  her  sway  in  her 
saddle,  and  stretched  out  a  quick  hand  to  stay  her  fall. 
She  waved  him  off  brokenly.  "  No,  no  !  Don't,  please  ! " 

"  Dorothy — "  he  began. 

She  commanded  herself,  and  looked  into  his  eyes  again 
with  a  look  of  love  and  longing  and  despair,  with  a  face 
of  .sorrow  and  indignation,  and  with  scorn  and  pity,  which 
shook  his  heart. 

"  How  could  you  !  "  she  cried  in  a  stifled  voice,  through 
the  tears  that  began  to  come.  "  How  could  you  ! " 

"  It  was  for  you,"  he  said. 

"  For  me  !     0  Philip,  don't  say  it ! " 

"  But  for  whom  else,  for  what  else  ?  You  can't  think 
that  I  would  do  it  only  for  money,  for  revenge  !  It  was 
for  you — only  for  you." 

"  And  you  think  that  makes  it  better !  Oh,  what  can 
you  have  imagined  me  !  How  little — little  you  have  un 
derstood  me  !  Better — 0  Philip  !  "  she  choked. 

"  It  was  a  question  between  losing  you  and  doing  it. 
I  did  it.  It  was  wrong,  it  was  wicked,  it  was  base,  if  you 
like.  You  may  think  what  you  will  of  it.  I  don't  de 
fend  it.  But  I  did  it  for  you.  And  I  would  do  it 
again." 

"  Don't ! "  she  cried  again,  shrinking  away  from  him. 
"  Oh,  no  one  could  accuse  you  as  you  accuse  yourself. 
Knowing  this — this  thing  that  you  have  let  yourself  do  to 
be  all  you  say,  how — 0  Philip,  how  could  you  stain  our — 
our  love  with  it !  I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  How 
could  it  have  been?  Did  I  make  you  do  this?"  she  cried 
suddenly.  She  stretched  out  her  hand  towards  him. 


376  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Was  it  my  folly  or  vanity,  in  letting  Jasper  go  on,  that 
forced  you  to  it — that  seemed  to  give  this  a  reason?" 
Philip  shook  his  head.  "  Oh,  no,  no !  Of  course  it 
couldn't  have  been  that.  But  why — "  She  stopped 
short.  "What  difference  can  it  make?  It's  done — it's 
done !  And  for  me — for  our  love  !  Oh,  how  could  you 
hope  that  any  happiness  could  be  bought  with  such 
wrong?  Can't  you  see  how  it  soils  and  degrades  and 
shames  every  moment  that  we  have  ever  had  with  each 
other?  Can't  you  see  how  it  must  kill  me  to  think 
that  we  have  come  by  all  that  has  seemed  so  sweet 
and  precious  and  good  through  a  fraud  —  through  a 
trick?" 

"  No,"  said  Philip,  stoutly ;  "  I  don't  see  that.  I 
won't  see  it.  If  we  really  love  each  other,  that  counts. 
But  nothing  else  counts.  I  can  make  this  right.  I  have 
taken,  I  can  restore."  He  said  it,  though  he  knew  other 
wise.  "  Why,  Dorothy,  no  one  knows.  And  no  one  can 
ever  know.  I  see  that  you  look  on  me  as  a  common  rob 
ber.  But  it's  not  so.  They  were  both  my  mines.  Jasper 
sent  me  money  to  work  a  claim  for  him.  The  money 
went  into  the  common  fund.  I  don't  know  which  of  the 
two  mines  it  was  used  for.  I  shall  never  know.  When  I 
began  to  work  with  his  money,  I  said  to  myself  that  I 
should  look  upon  the  '  Little  Cipher '  as  his.  But  both 
still  belonged  to  me.  I  did  all  the  work  on  them.  They 
existed  only  through  the  work  I  directed  upon  them. 
Jasper  never  thought  anything  of  his  chances  at  Piiion. 
It  was  like  giving  a  man  $500  to  place  on  a  horse  for  you, 
or  to  buy  a  lottery-ticket  with.  And  I  thought  so  little 
of  the  chances,  one  way  or  the  other,  after  the  first 
month,  that  I  swear  to  you  it  was  never  in  my  thoughts 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  377 

which  claim  was  his  and  which  was  mine.  Legally  they 
were  both  mine.  In  fact,  they  were  both  mine,  not  only 
for  all  practical  purposes,  but  actually.  For  Jasper  had 
never  bought  anything  from  me.  He  had  given  me  some 
money  to  expend  in  working  a  claim."  Dorothy  opened 
her  mouth,  but  he  went  on  with  a  gesture  :  "  Yes ;  I  know. 
It's  true.  Don't  suppose  I  shirked  the  truth  for  a  mo 
ment.  The  difference  is  no  difference.  In  my  con 
science  Jasper  was  the  owner  of  the  '  Little  Cipher '  and 
ail  that  might  come  from  it.  He  is  so  yet.  I  don't  dis 
pute  it.  It  has  never  been  present  in  my  mind  in  any 
other  way  since  the  temptation  to  keep  silence,  and  let 
him  take  the  other  for  his,  came  upon  me.  Since  you 
must  judge  me,  it  is  fair  that  you  should  know  how  it  has 
been  with  me.  If  it  is  worse  to  have  done  what  I  did 
knowingly,  I  tell  you  freely  that  I  did  it  in  the  face  of 
the  knowledge  that  not  all  the  deeds  and  registrations 
and  formal  evidence  of  ownership  in  the  world  could 
make  Jasper  more  the  owner  of  the  '  Little  Cipher '  than 
he  was  through  my  word  to  myself.  I  know  it ;  but  I  did 
it — I  mustn't  tell  you  why  or  how — for  you."  His  voice 
dropped,  and  as  their  horses  went  slowly  along,  he  leaned 
over,  and  took  the  hand  she  had  let  fall  by  her  side. 
"  Does  that  count  for  nothing  with  you,  Dorothy  ?  " 

She  had  been  listening  to  him  wearily,  wonderingly, 
hoping  against  hope  that  he  could  excuse  himself,  that  he 
could  make  the  obvious  wrong  seem  right.  But  at  this 
she  started  as  if  waking  herself  from  a  sleep,  and  an 
swered  :  "  Oh,  for  too  much  !  Too  much  ! "  She  released 
her  hand  quietly.  Philip  felt  a  shock  go  through  him. 
"  Every  word  you  say  makes  it  a  more  impossible  thing 
for  you  to  have  done,  Philip.  And  to  do  it,  above  all,  in 


378  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

the  name  of  our  love !  You  had  an  opportunity  such  as 
comes  to  a  man  in  a  thousand.  You  could  have  been 
strong ;  you  could  have  turned  from  that  awful  tempta 
tion,  and  I  should  have  loved  you  for  it  as  women  have 
loved  heroes  and  martyrs.  I  understand  the  temptation. 
It  was  cruel ;  even  leaving  all  this  miserable  thought  of 
me  out  of  it,  it  was  horribly  cruel.  I  said  how  it  would 
seem  very  hard  to  do  right  in  such  a  case.  That  was  my 
first  thought.  But,  0  Philip,  can  you  think  that  it 
makes  it  easier  for  me  to  think  you  have  failed — to  know 
that  it  was  hard  ?  Because  the  right  is  hard,  the  wrong 
is  not  good,  is  it  ?  And  surely  the  right  is  dearer  for  be 
ing  difficult.  Any  man  might  have  resisted  if  it  had  not 
been  bitter  to  be  strong.  Only  such  a  man  as  I  have  be 
lieved  you  could  be  great  enough  for  the  noble  thing  that 
was  open  to  you." 

"  Stop  !    Stop  !."  he  cried,  in  pain. 

"  No ;  let.  me  speak  now,  please.  The  truth  is  better. 
0  Philip,"  she  cried,  "  when  I  think  of  you  with  those 
two  mines  in  your  possession,  with  the  knowledge  that 
one  of  them  held  a  fortune,  and  that  the  other  was  a 
mere  opening  in  the  ground ;  and  when  I  think  of  you 
with  the  other  knowledge  that  the  one  that  held  a  fortune 
was  your  brother's,  for  your  conscience,  and  the  empty 
one,  still  only  for  your  conscience,  belonged  to  you,  and 
that  no  one  knew  this — no  one ! " — she  drew  a  deep 
breath — "  when  I  think  of  that,  and  remember  that  that 
brother  had  wronged  you  to  the  death  ;  that  he  had  made 
it  seem  right  to  rob  him  by  robbing  you ;  that  he  had 
driven  your  father  to  desperation,  and  brought  you  to 
poverty;  when  I  think  of  all  those  things,  and  see  the 
splendid,  generous,  heroic  right  you  might  have  done,  and 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  379 

have  to  know  that  you  chose  to  do  this — oh,  if  I  could 
have  died  before  I  knew  it ! " 

A  convulsive  sob  escaped  her.  She  pressed  her  cheeks 
rapidly  and  repeatedly  with  her  handkerchief.  When 
she  looked  at  him  again  it  was  with  streaming  eyes. 
"  Say  you  were  not  in  your  right  mind,  that  you  did  it  in 
error !  Say  anything  rather  than  leave  me  to  believe  what 
I  must !  It  wasn't  you  !  0  Philip  !  Was  not  the  man  I 
have  known  you  for  too  proud  ?  Would  he  not  have  seen 
how  the  very  security  with  which  he  might  take,  and  keep 
silence,  forced  him  to  hold  his  hand  ?  And  would  he  not 
have  felt,  proudly,  that  every  one's  ignorance  of  his  duty, 
and  the  infinite  delicacy  that  ignorance  forced  upon 
him — yes,  that  the  mere  thread  which  bound  must  be 
stronger  for  him  than  the  strongest  bond,  because  it 
bound  him  to  himself?  0  Philip,  say  you  did  not  do 
it!" 

"  I  can't !    I  can't !  "  he  cried.     "  It's  true ! " 

She  gazed  at  him  with  eyes  of  unspeakable  reproach ; 
and  he  dropped  the  eyes  he  had  fixed  upon  hers  while  she 
spoke  with  the  fascination  of  a  criminal  who  hears  his 
sentence.  The  party  in  advance  had  almost  disappeared. 
The  wide  plain,  hemmed  in  by  hills,  seemed  a  world,  in 
which  he  and  she  alone  existed.  She  checked  her  horse, 
and  held  out  her  hand. 

"  Good-bye,  then." 

"  Good-bye  ?  "  he  exclaimed,  stupefied. 

"  Did  you  think  we  could  go  on  ?  "  she  asked  sadly. 
"  Did  you  think  it  could  all  be  as  it  was  ?  No ;  it  is  ended 
for  us.  Good-bye,"  she  repeated.  The  tears  fell  from 
her  eyes  in  a  rain,  but  there  was  no  relenting  in  her  face. 
"  Give  me  my  ring,"  she  said  dully. 


380  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

He  stared.  "Dorothy,"  he  burst  out,  "you  can't! 
You  won't ! " 

"  I  must." 

"  I  have  wronged  Jasper.  I  confess  it.  Nothing  that 
he  has  done  excuses  it.  It  makes  it  worse.  I  own  it. 
But  I  can  right  that.  I  will.  Dorothy,  surely — surely 
this  need  not  touch  us ! " 

"  Oh,  what  do  I  care  for  Jasper?  "  she  cried  in  misery. 
"  It  is  for  you  I  care,  and  you  have  lost  yourself  to  me. 
It  isn't  the  wrong  to  him  !  It  is  the  wrong  to  yourself,  to 
me,  to  all  that  we — to  all  that  has  been.  Oh,  is  it  for  me 
to  show  you  such  a  thing  ?  You  have  murdered  Our 
love.  All  the  atonements  in  the  world  can't  change 
that." 

She  buried  her  face  in  her  hands.  Her  horse  stamped 
an  impatient  foot,  and  swung  his  head  free  of  the  rein. 

"  You  despise  me,  you  hate  me ;  I  see  that"  exclaimed 
Philip.  "  But  you  sha'n't  throw  me  off.  You  sha'n't 
raise  me  to  such  a  happiness  as  you  have  let  me  know  to 
cast  me  back.  You  should  have  thought  of  that  before 
you  stretched  out  your  hand  to  lift  me  up.  You  should 
have  known  that  I  am  not  made  of  the  stuff  that  bears. 
I  can't  bear  this.  I  won't.  Dorothy,  girl," — his  voice 
fell  to  the  note  of  tenderness, — "  I  can't  do  without  you. 
You  have  taught  me  not  to  be  able  to  do  without  you. 
You  won't  do  this  thing.  Oh,  my  God,  could  I  live  and 
know  that  you  were  lost  to  me — and  lost  through  Jasper  ? 
Have  you  thought  of  that  ?  Can  you  think  that  I  could 
bear  to  know  that,  after  all  that  has  gone  and  passed,  it 
is  Jasper  who  parts  us  ?  You  see  how  it  can't  be." 

"  Give  me  my  ring,  please,"  she  said,  not  coldly  or 
hardly,  but  resolutely. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  381 

He  tore  it  from  his  finger.  "  As  you  wish,"  he  said 
with  blazing  eyes.  And  then,  with  cold  courtesy :  "  You 
won't  want  me  to  go  on  with  you.  I  will  wait  here  until 
I  see  you  with  the  rest." 

"  0  Philip ! "  she  trembled.  She  reached  out  her 
hand. 

He  would  not  see  it.  He  leaned  forward  and  gave  her 
the  reins  she  had  allowed  to  slip  from  her.  He  lifted 
his  sombrero. 

"  Good-bye,"  he  said  coldly. 

She  gave  one  glance  at  him.  Her  mouth  twitched 
pitifully.  Then  she  struck  the  pony  a  sharp  blow  with 
her  quirt.  The  beast  leaped  forward. 

Philip  watched  her  steadfastly  until  she  had  melted 
into  the  dust-cloud  which  indicated  the  position  of  the 
picnic  party.  He  knit  his  brow  upon  his  straining  eyes, 
and  bit  his  lip  fiercely  as  he  gazed.  When  he  had  seen 
the  last  of  her  he  whirled  his  horse,  and  dug  his  spurs 
into  the  animal's  flanks  with  a  wild  sob  of  pain. 


XXVIII. 

VERTNER  took  the  picnic  party  over  the  entire  Iron 
Mine,  inexorably,  when  they  came  to  it.  They  watched 
the  drilling ;  a  blasting  was  set  off  for  them  ;  they  rode  in 
the  ore-cars ;  they  clambered  down  ladders  into  black  pits, 
where  only  the  candles  lighted  them ;  they  clambered  up 
again;  they  crouched  and  crawled  and  stumbled  after 
their  guide  through  galleries  and  passages  which  never 
ended ;  and  four  of  the  party  were  conscious  of  it  all. 


382  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

Dorothy  and  Margaret  and  Ernfield  were  thinking  of  other 
things. 

Margaret  sat  down  in  her  old  room,  when  she  was  back 
again  that  evening,  and  wrote  Deed  a  long  letter,  begging 
him  to  return,  and  tore  it  up. 

Dorothy,  on  her  return,  found  her  father  in  his  study 
chair.  She  curled  her  arms  about  him,  and  asked  him 
without  preface  if  he  would  not  give  up  his  charge  at 
once,  and  leave  Maverick — forever.  The  blood  tingled  in 
his  veins,  and  he  drew  a  long  breath.  The  relief  of  re 
ceiving  the  proposal  at  last  from  her  silenced  all  speech  for 
a  moment.  He  had  paltered  with  the  need  of  breaking  it 
to  her,  he  had  postponed  the  evil  day  through  the  forbear 
ance  of  the  bishop,  with  the  fear  of  what  she  must  feel,  of 
what  she  must  say ;  and  while  he  waited,  the  difficulty 
was  solved  for  him.  For  the  instant  he  was  too  happy  in 
the  fact  to  question  occasions  or  causes. 

"  Why,  I  don't  know,  Dorothy,"  he  said,  endeavouring 
to  hide  his  pleasure ;  "  if  you  don't  like  Maverick,  I  dare 
say  I  could  find  reasons  for  not  liking  it,  too.  In  fact, 
now  I  think  of  it,  I've  been  impatient  and  restless  here  for 
some  time.  Yes,  dear,"  he  said,  patting  her  hand  ;  "  since 
you  wish  it,  let  us  go." 

"  How  good  you  are,  papa !  I  knew  you  would  say  so. 
And  where  shall  we  go  ?  " 

"  Why,  that's  for  you  to  say,  partly,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  But  I  can't  call  you  to  a  new  parish.  I'm  not  a  ves 
try  or  a  church  committee.  I  wish  I  were.  You  would 
have  ten  thousand  a  year  for  your  salary,  and  have  all  the 
things  you  have  to  go  without  now, — poor  papa ! — and 
never  do  anything  you  didn't  want  to." 

"  What  a  picture  !     But  I  thought  we  were  all  to  revel 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  383 

in  something  of  that  sort,  without  the  assistance  of  church 
vestries,  in  that  fine  future  of  your  own  that  you've  planned. 
I  never  consented  to  it,  you  know.  I  never  agreed  to  play 
the  part  you've  assigned  me  in  your  drama  of  two  happy 
people  and  another." 

"  Oh,  don't  speak  of  that,  papa ! "  she  cried,  stooping 
over  him,  and  burying  her  face.  "  Don't  speak  of  it !  " 

"  Why — why — "  he  exclaimed,  in  alarm,  "  what  is  the 
matter,  my  girl?  Have  you  and  Philip  been — what  is  it? 
Tell  me,  child."  A  stern  and  impatient  note  came  into 
his  voice. 

"  Oh,  I  can't  tell  you !  It  isn't  anything  that  I  can 
tell." 

"  Nonsense,  Dorothy !  Don't  make  all  this  trouble 
about  a  lovers'  quarrel,  child.  Do  you  suppose  two  lovers 
never  quarrel?  Do  you  suppose  two  lovers  never  quar 
relled  before  ?" 

She  lifted  her  tear-stained  face  from  his  breast,  and 
looked  in  her  father's  eyes,  as  she  said,  "  This  is  not  a 
quarrel."  A  look  passed  over  her  face  such  as  she  might 
have  given  Philip  if  he  had  been  before  her — grieving  and 
miserable,  but  proud,  self-contained,  resolute.  Her  father 
did  not  understand  it. 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  relieved.  "  Well,  then,  don't  let  him 
suppose  it  is."  He  rose,  and  lighted  a  cigar.  Dorothy 
stared  at  him  from  the  seat  which  she  kept  on  the  arm  of 
his  chair.  "  Don't  play  with  a  man,  Dorothy.  It  isn't 
nice," — he  blew  out  the  first  slender  whiff  of  smoke  con 
templatively,  as  he  brushed  a  speck  of  lint  from  the  new 
clerical  coat  to  which  he  had  treated  himself  since  he  had 
been  at  ease  about  the  future, — "  and  it  isn't  fair.  It's 
even  unwise  when  a  girl  is  making  a  marriage  so  for- 
25 


384  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

tunate  and  desirable  in  every  way  as  yours."    He  frowned 
slightly. 

Dorothy  raised  her  eyes  and  looked  into  his.  "  You 
don't  understand,  papa,"  she  said  quietly.  "  I  shall  never 
marry  Mr.  Deed." 

Cutter  went  to  Ira's,  Ernfield's  office,  the  Vertners', 
and  finally  to  the  Maurices',  on  his  return,  without  find 
ing  a  trace  of  Philip.  He  thought  the  clergyman's  re 
plies  to  his  inquiries  short.  He  stabled  his  horse,  and 
walked  about  the  town,  looking  for  Philip. 

The  shops  were  still  open,  and  men  and  women  paused 
before  them  to  price  the  goods  displayed  outside,  or  went  in 
to  the  vividly  lighted  interiors,  where  the  arc-light  glowed 
and  glared.  Trade  was  going  on  listlessly.  It  was  near 
the  end  of  the  month,  the  pay-car  was  still  to  come  up 
from  Denver,  and  the  railway  employees  of  all  grades 
awaited  the  monthly  guest.  The  hands  at  the  mines  and 
the  cow-punchers  were  paid  off  at  the  same  time,  in  order 
to  keep  the  festival  which  followed  pay-day,  and  which 
disorganized  the  town  in  the  process  of  enriching  it, 
within  as  narrow  limits  as  possible.  The  lull  that  pre 
cedes  a  f£te  therefore  lay  over  Maverick.  Only  two  thirds 
of  the  electric  lamps  were  turned  on ;  but  there  was  never 
theless  more  light  than  noise.  Suddenly  a  clatter  of  hoofs 
sounded  above  the  vague  and  leisurely  murmur  of  the 
quiet  thoroughfare,  and  those  on  the  sidewalk  turned  at 
sight  of  a  horse  ridden  at  a  furious  pace.  No  one  save 
Cutter  recognized  the  rider.  The  hoofs  hammered  across 
the  bridge  leading  to  the  hotel,  and  Cutter  followed 
hastily.  The  whistle  of  the  night  train  sounded  down  in 
the  valley  at  the  moment,  borne  for  miles  through  the 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  385 

clear  air.  Philip  was  standing  at  the  bar  of  the  hotel, 
draining  a  stiff  glass.  As  Cutter  laid  his  hands  upon  his 
arm,  Philip  raised  his  eyes  and  regarded  him  strangely. 
He  motioned  to  the  bartender  for  another  glass.  Cutter 
shook  his  head,  and  looked  anxiously  into  his  friend's 
face. 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  " 

"  To  the  devil — to  Jasper."  His  voice  was  hoarse,  and 
his  black  eyes  stared  from  his  haggard  face  with  the  effect 
of  a  man  long  ill.  The  train  whistled  again,  nearer. 
Philip  swallowed  what  remained  of  the  spirits  in  his  glass 
at  a  gulp.  "  Come,  I'm  off,"  he  said.  He  gathered  his 
change  from  the  counter,  and  made  a  rush  for  the  door, 
as  the  train  roared  into  the  station.  Cutter  caught  his 
arm  at  the  door. 

"  Hold  on,  man  !     You're  mad  ! " 

Philip  turned  a  weary  face  upon  him.  He  smiled 
sadly.  "  Yes,"  he  said. 

"  You're  not  well.  It's  crazy  to  be  careering  over  the 
country  in  your  state.  Come  back  with  me  to  the  '  Snow 
Find,'  and  go  to  bed  and  behave  yourself." 

"  Oh,  I'll  behave  myself.  That's  what  I'm  doing  now. 
I've  dropped  the  other  thing.  Come  along."  He  made 
for  the  train,  Cutter  following  him,  remonstrating. 

"  See  here,  you're  not  going  to  take  this  train.  You're 
a  sick  man,  I  tell  you." 

Philip  gave  him  his  weary  smile  again  as  he  put  his 
foot  on  the  first  step  of  the  Pullman.  "  Yes,  Cutter,  I'm 
a  sick  man  fast  enough,  but  not  in  the  way  you  mean. 
I've  got  to  go  to  Pinon.  It  won't  hurt  me.  Come  along, 
if  you  don't  believe  me." 

Cutter  gazed  up  at  him  for  a  moment,  where  he  stood 


386  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

on  the  platform  above  him,  in  helpless  perplexity.     Then 
he  said,  "  You  know  what  you  are  ?  " 

Philip  laughed  almost  with  pleasure.  "  Yes ;  I  know." 
"  Just  stay  there,  then,  till  I  get  a  ticket." 
The  full  moon  was  flooding  the  valley  as  the  train  ran 
out  towards  the  mountains, beaming  virginally,  in  this  crys 
talline  atmosphere,  through  a  medium  no  grosser  than  its 
own.  The  purity  of  the  air  gave  a  new  effect  of  lumi 
nosity,  of  splendour,  and  of  abundance  to  the  great  lamp 
swinging  aloft.  It  was  light  distilled  ;  the  air  was  not 
conscious  of  it.  It  fixed  the  valley  under  its  cold,  bare, 
hard  gaze,  etching  the  circling  hills  against  the  sky  with 
a  finger  dipped  in  light,  which  seemed  to  bound,  to  out 
line,  to  select,  and  finally,  as  one  looked,  to  detach  it  all 
from  neighbouring  sky  and  earth,  and  to  catch  it  away 
into  that  strange  effect  of  being  a  picture  which  we  know 
in  all  memorable  scenes. 

They  began  to  climb  into  the  recesses  of  the  hills  after 
the  swift  run  through  the  valley.  The  opposite  range  of 
mountains  was  behind  them,  and  as  the  young  men  looked 
out  in  silence  from  the  windows  of  the  compartment  they 
had  taken  together  in  the  Pullman,  far  away  a  liquid  tract 
of  radiance  shone  on  their  eyes  from  time  to  time ;  it  was 
the  snow,  crusted  in  molten  reaches  along  the  mountain 
sides.  Beside  the  silvery  lakes  of  crust,  what  one  knew 
by  day  for  the  wooded  hollows  of  the  lower  slopes  were 
black  mysteries  under  the  light. 

Philip  turned  from  the  scene  with  a  heavy  sigh. 
"  You  can  catch  the  9:47  back  from  Barker's,"  he  said 
suddenly,  catching  the  eye  of  Cutter,  who  faced  him  from 
the  opposite  seat.     "  You  mustn't  think  of  coming  along 
with  me." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  387 

"  I  have  an  errand  of  my  own  over  the  range.  Don't 
bother  about  me." 

"  Come,  no  nonsense." 

"  I  have,  I  tell  you." 

"  Oh,  well."    He  dropped  the  question  listlessly. 

"  I  say,  old  man,  what's  the  matter  ?  "  Cutter  laid  a 
hand  on  his  knee. 

"  The  devil's  the  matter,"  groaned  Philip.  "  What  do 
you  suppose  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.     Jasper  ?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  it  isn't  Jasper.  I'm  sick  of  that  pretence. 
I  cheated  myself  with  the  idea  that  it  was  Jasper  when  I 
let  myself  do  the  thing.  But  it  wasn't.  It  was  I." 

"  I  don't  believe  it." 

"  Well,  anyway,  it's  I  who  suffer  for  it." 

"  I  see  that,"  returned  Cutter,  gently.  "  But  how  ? 
Why?" 

"  Because  I'm  not  the  fine  fellow  I  have  liked  to  think 
myself,  not  even  the  fine  fellow  you  think  me.  I'm  not  a 
fine  fellow  at  all,  Cutter  ;  and  I've  done  a  low  thing." 

"  Pshaw  ! " 

"  Is  it  lofty  to  abuse  a  woman's  confidence,  then  ?  Is 
it  admirable  to  rob  a  man  who  has  trusted  you?" 

"  What  have  you  done  ?  "  asked  his  friend,  quietly. 

"  I've  taken  a  mine  which  doesn't  belong  to  me  be 
cause  I  could,  and  because  the  man  to  whom  it  belongs 
had  done  me  a  wrong,  and  wanted  to  marry  the  girl  I 
wanted  to  marry.  Is  that  plain  ?  " 

"The  'Little  Cipher'?"  stammered  Cutter.  "Jas 
per?" 

Philip  nodded. 

"  But  see  here — "  began  Cutter. 


388  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  there's  nothing  to  say,"  cried  Philip.     "  A  man 
is  one  thing  or  the  other.     I'm  the  other.     She  despises 
me.     She  hates  me." 
"Why?" 
"  Why ! " 

"  Yes,  why  ?  Does  she  know  what  Jasper  has  done  ?  " 
"  Yes ;  but  she  knows  what  I  have  done.  Nothing 
else  makes  any  difference.  It  can't  to  a  woman,  and 
probably  that  shows  that  it  shouldn't  to  any  one."  He 
told  Cutter  of  Maurice's  situation  ;  he  explained  his 
temptation,  palliating  nothing.  "  I  thought  the  wrong 
Jasper  had  done  me  made  my  wrong  right,"  he  said. 
"  It  didn't.  It  only  made  a  new  one  with  separate  con 
sequences.  I  thought  my  love  for  her  justified  it ;  to  her 
that  seemed  the  damning  touch.  I  believe  she  could 
have  forgiven  my  villainy,  but  not  that — not  that !  I 
fought  it;  I  wouldn't  see;  I  took  my  stand  upon  our 
love;  I  made  her  suffer  as  much  as  I  knew  how,  and 
parted  from  her  in  anger.  But  all  the  time  I  felt  her 
contempt  scorching  through  me.  When  I  got  away  from 
her  it  was  more  than  I  could  bear.  I  hunted  up  Jasper, 
when  I  found  he  was  back,  and  turned  over  the  mine  to 
him,  as  I  ought  to  have  done  the  first  minute  I  heard  of 
the  strike." 
"What?" 

"  You  wouldn't  have  had  me  keep  it,  I  hope?" 
"  I  know,  Deed  ;  but  owning  up  to  Jasper — " 
"  I  didn't  say  I  liked  it.     I  was  pursued  by  the  thought 
of  her  scorn,  I  tell  you.     Do  you  think  I  could  bear  to 
know  that  she  despised  me,  and  that  she  was  right  ?    I 
had  to  do  something.     If  she  ever  hears  of  it,  she  will 
know  that  I  tried  to  do  what  I  could." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  389 

"Yes,  yes,"  cried  Cutter,  impatiently;  "but  the  hu 
miliation  ! " 

"Have  I  deserved  to  please  my  pride?  Jasper  was  a 
blackguard,  as  usual ;  but  there  were  two  of  us  this  time. 
It  seemed  to  help  the  business  along." 

"And  you've  told  him?" 

Philip  nodded ;  but,  at  Cutter's  look,  "  Oh,  don't  ask 
me  what  he  said ! "  exclaimed  he.  "  It  was  a  terrible 
scene.  The  fellow  is  ill.  Coming  back  from  his  journey, 
he  was  caught  in  a  blizzard  ;  for  three  days  he  was  under 
a  rock,  in  the  snow ;  he's  in  a  bad  way.  He  got  up  in 
bed ;  he  raved ;  Ernfield  came  in,  and  I  went.  I  looked 
back  at  him  at  the  door,  and  he  nodded  to  me  with  a 
gloating  smile.  I  know  what  he  means.  He  has  me, 
now.  I've  put  myself  in  the  wrong.  All  that  has  gone 
before — all  that  led  up  to  this — is  cancelled.  He'll  take 
his  opportunity.  It's  all  right." 

He  buried  his  face  moodily  in  his  hands.  Cutter  sat 
silent.  He  opened  his  lips  to  speak  once  or  twice,  and 
found  nothing  to  say.  The  moon,  which  had  been  hidden 
since  they  had  entered  the  gorge  between  the  hills,  and 
set  out  on  their  climb  to  the  summit,  gleamed  suddenly 
upon  a  field  of  snow,  lying  high  between  the  mountains 
into  which  they  were  steaming  up.  It  shone  into  their 
windows,  and  filled  the  dusky  compartment  with  radi 
ance. 

Cutter  began  to  speak  in  a  low  voice.  He  said  Jasper 
would  do  nothing;  he  didn't  doubt  his  will,  but  nothing 
was  open  to  him ;  and  he  went  on  to  tell  his  friend  that 
he  exaggerated  the  enormity  of  what  he  had  done.  "  You 
say  that  you've  always  looked  on  the  '  Little  Cipher '  as 
Jasper's,"  he  said.  "  But  we've  only  your  word  for  it — 


390  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

and  your  word  for  a  mental  process  so  intangible  that 
even  you  can't  say  when  or  how  the  4  Little  Cipher '  be 
came  Jasper's  mine,  or  by  what  process  it  ceased  to  be  his 
and  became  yours."  And  he  added  that  whatever  might 
be  true  about  this,  surely  the  provocation  made  a  differ 
ence  ;  surely  it  counted  that  it  was  done  against  one  man 
rather  than  another.  He  didn't  see  why  he  should  con 
cern  himself  much  about  anything  done  against  Jasper. 

He  believed  some  of  this,  but  not  enough  to  enable 
him  to  face  Philip,  as  he  stared  at  him  with  a  miserable 
smile  a  moment  before  he  muttered :  "  Rot !  rot !  rot ! 
Very  kind  of  you,  Cutter,  but  no  good.  I  can't  deceive 
myself  with  such  notions  as  that.  It  makes  no  difference, 
though.  If  you  want  to  console  me,  don't  talk  about 
Jasper.  I  can  get  over  that  part  of  it,  myself.  It's  the 
other — 0  Cutter,  can't  you  see  it's  the  other  that  matters  ? 
It's  that  I've  done  it  against  her!  I  thought  if  she  cared 
for  me  she  would  pardon  it  because  I  had  done  it  for  her. 
Crazy  fool !  Not  to  see  how  it  abused  all  her  trust  in  me ; 
how  it  must  wound  her  at  her  tenderest;  how  it  must 
profane  all  our  relation.  She  will  never  forgive  me.  She 
hates  me.  She  despises  me." 

He  rose  with  a  groan,  and  took  a  restless  turn  within 
the  narrow  space  of  the  compartment,  throwing  his  arms 
wide,  and  letting  them  fall  again  in  despair.  Suddenly  he 
stood  still  and  faced  his  friend.  "  Heavens,  man !  Do 
you  know  what  that  means  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  391 


XXIX. 

MAKGAKET  went  to  call  on  Dorothy  the  next  morning. 
She  had  been  thinking  a  great  deal  about  her  since  the 
day  before.  All  forms  of  misery  seemed  especially  griev 
ous  to  her  just  now,  and  useless  forms  of  it  seemed  merely 
wicked.  She  had  heard  nothing  from  Deed,  but  there 
had  not  been  time ;  he  had  telegraphed  to  let  her  know 
of  his  arrival,  and  had  promised  to  telegraph  again  as  soon 
as  he  had  anything  to  communicate.  The  dread  in  which 
she  awaited  this  message  created  in  her,  for  the  moment, 
a  need  to  befriend  the  sorrow  of  another.  She  felt  a  cer 
tain  shyness.  She  had  been  conscious  in  their  earlier 
meetings  of  the  vague  hesitation  about  her  which  Dorothy 
had  tried  to  conceal.  But  she  would  not  allow  this  to 
make  a  difference. 

She  found  the  house  upturned  when  she  arrived  at  the 
Maurices'.  Dorothy  came  into  the  little  parlour  after  a 
moment,  apologizing  for  her  appearance  :  she  was  in  the 
disarray  of  the  house  uniform  in  which  she  was  accus 
tomed  to  attack  the  heavier  household  problems.  She 
kept  on  her  apron.  Margaret,  glancing  at  her,  saw  the 
traces  of  tears  on  her  cheeks. 

"  I  have  come — "  she  began  doubtfully.  Her  slow  eye 
for  such  things  showed  her  suddenly  the  pictures  packed 
and  standing  in  ranks  against  the  wall,  the  upturned  car 
pet,  the  dismantled  walls  and  swathed  furniture.  "  But 
are  you  moving  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  tell  you, 
Mrs.  Deed.  Papa  has  sent  in  his  resignation."  She  met 
her  interlocutor's  eyes  for  the  moment  as  if  with  the  inten- 


392  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

tion  of  putting  some  face  upon  the  action.  Margaret  was 
the  first  to  whom  she  had  been  obliged  to  make  the  an 
nouncement  ;  put  into  words  it  sounded  barren ;  she  saw 
that  she  had  unconsciously  relied  on  her  father  to  front 
the  inquiring  world  with  an  excuse.  She  found  none  for 
herself,  and  dropped  her  eyes  before  Margaret's  clear,  kind 
gaze. 

Margaret's  own  thought  leaped  to  its  decision  with  its 
habitual  certainty  where  Deed  was  not  concerned.  Doro 
thy  was  sitting  on  the  sofa ;  Margaret  rose  quickly,  and 
came  and  stood  in  front  of  her.  "  Won't  you  let  me  help 
you  ?  "  she  said. 

"  About  moving  ?  "  asked  Dorothy,  with  troubled  eyes. 
"  Oh,  there's  nothing.  Thank  you  very  much,  of  course. 
But  we  have  so  little." 

"  I  didn't  mean  about  moving,  though  I  should  be  glad 
if  you  would  let  me  do  anything  for  you  in  that,  if  you 
must  go.  But  you  had  better  stay.  I  was  thinking 
about—"  She  sat  down  on  the  sofa  beside  her,  and  stole 
her  hand  upon  Dorothy's.  "  Listen,"  she  said  in  a  low 
voice ;  "  I  am  in  deep  trouble — I  too — the  deepest.  Won't 
you  let  me  help  you  ?  " 

The  sudden  tears  started  to  Dorothy's  eyes.  "  But 
how  ?  "  she  stammered.  "  But  why  ?  " 

"  He  is  near  to  me  as  well  as  to  you,  you  know.  It 
seems  to  give  me  a  sort  of  right  to  speak.  But  perhaps 
you  won't  think  that.  Perhaps  it  hurts  you  to  have  it 
spoken  of.  I  know — trouble  is  like  that ;  we  wish  to  keep 
it  to  ourselves.  But  it's  better  shared,  isn't  it?  It  might 
be  needless ;  it  so  often  is.  It's  hard  to  be  wise,  but  we 
may  be  quite  sure  of  that — don't  you  think  so — that  need 
less  additions  to  the  misery  of  the  world  are  wrong?  And 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  393 

even  if  it  must  remain  all  the  trouble  it  seems  to  one's  self, 
it  is  good  to  let  another  feel  part  of  the  ache  with  one.  It 
somehow  helps." 

Dorothy  listened  with  averted  face ;  she  kept  her  glis 
tening  eyes  on  the  opposite  wall ;  she  pressed  the  kindly 
hand  as  Margaret  went  on.  When  she  finished  she  seized 
it,  turning  to  face  her,  and  gazed  into  her  eyes  for  a  mo 
ment  through  a  mist  of  tears. 

"  Oh,  you  are  good  ! "  she  murmured,  chokingly.  "  I 
am  very  unhappy ! " 

She  sobbed  out  her  story  in  Margaret's  lap.  When  she 
had  done,  they  remained  a  long  time  in  each  other's  arms. 

"  I  see  how  you  feel.  It  is  hard,"  murmured  Margaret, 
drying  her  eyes ;  "  but  you  must  forgive  him." 

The  fair  head  on  her  shoulder  was  shaken  violently. 
"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Margaret,  gently ;  "  you  must,  and  you 
will."  She  felt  herself  very  old  in  the  presence  of  this 
violent  young  passion ;  she  felt  rich  in  the  abundance  of 
her  experience,  and  the  richer  because  it  was  so  recent. 
"  You  love  him,  don't  you? " 

Dorothy  raised  her  head,  and  regarded  Margaret  in  a 
kind  of  amazement. 

"  Then  you  will  forgive  him,"  said  Margaret,  quickly. 
"  Things  don't  matter  so  much  as  we  think.  I  have 
learned  that.  One  thing  matters — only  one.  And  you 
may  be  sure  he  has  his  excuses  if  you  could  know  them. 
My  husband  is  suffering  from  a  wrong  he  believes  he  did 
him ;  we  have  been  very  confident  about  it ;  but  since  I 
have  seen  him  I  have  doubted.  We  must  both  wait.  Why, 
you  saw  him,  you  heard  him — his  honest  eyes,  that  true 
voice — I  don't  believe  he's  false — not  intentionally,  not 
wickedly,  not  without  excuse." 


394  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  don't,  don't ! " 

"  Yes ;  I  know.  If  lie  is  false,  in  spite  of  all  that,  it's 
the  worse — infinitely  the  worse.  But  be  sure  he  would 
have  something  to  say  if  you  would  give  him  his  oppor 
tunity." 

"  He  has  had  it ;  it  is  he  who  has  condemned  himself. 
It  was  from  his  own  lips.  Don't  think,  please  don't  think, 
that  I  would  believe  any  one  else  about  him  ! " 

Margaret  observed  her  irresolutely,  a  little  dashed. 
Her  will  to  help  her  was  unaltered,  but  she  had  not  the 
habit  of  quick  resource. 

"  He  said  that  he  had  taken  his  brother's  mine  ?  "  she 
repeated. 

"  Yes,  yes.  He  said — how  little  men  understand  ! — that 
he  did  it  for  me  !  That  was  his  excuse ! " 

"  Yes,"  said  Margaret,  slowly ;  "  I  know  what  you  mean. 
I  can  see  how  that  would  seem  the  worst  pain  of  all ;  and 
yet,  don't  you  see,  too,"  she  added  meditatively,  "  how  per 
haps  it  is  an  excuse,  and  if  an  excuse  at  all,  the  best  ? " 
She  put  this  forward  doubtfully. 

Dorothy  shook  her  head.  "Oh,  don't  you  think  I 
have  tried  to  believe  that  ?  Don't  you  think  I  tried  to 
give  him  opportunities  to  excuse  himself,  to  make  it  seem 
right,  and  that  I  have  done  my  best  to  excuse  him  to  my 
self  since  ?  Sometimes  I  have  made  myself  believe  that 
if  I  couldn't  pardon  his  doing  it  for  me,  I  ought  to  par 
don  him  because  it  was  done  against  his  brother.  It  was 
a  cruel  position.  But  that  makes  it  only  worse — a  thou 
sand  times  worse,  doesn't  it  ? "  She  asked  it  as  a  ques 
tion.  Margaret  was  silent.  " Doesn't  it? "  she  repeated. 

"  Yes — no — perhaps.  Do  you  know  what  his  brother 
had  done  to  him  ?  Do  you  know  it  all  ?  " 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  395 

"  Oh,  yes,  yes !  It  was  very  hard.  But  that's  what  I 
mean — it  was  so  hard  that  it  was  for  him  all  the  more  to 
hold  his  hand.  It  was  his  privilege  not  to  strike.  It 
seems  to  me  no  one  ever  had  such  an  opportunity.  And 
to  use  it  as  he  did !  Oh,  there  is  no  excuse — none.  The 
excuses  only  make  it  more  wrong ;  they  make  it  impossible 
to  forgive." 

Margaret  bit  her  lip.  She  did  not  know  what  to  say. 
But  she  reached  out  her  hand  suddenly,  and  said  in  a  low 
voice  :  "  If  you  have  no  excuse  for  him,  think  how  much 
less  he  can  have  one  for  himself.  Have  you  thought  of 
that  ?  Doesn't  it  seem  as  if  it  almost  forced  you  to  forgive 
him?  Think  how  he  must  be  suffering !  Kemember,  he 
loves  you,  too.  Think  how  his  love  must  be  making  it  a 
torture  for  him  that  you  should  think  of  him  as  you  do, 
and  that  you  are  right." 

"  Yes ;  I  have  thought  of  that.  I  have  thought  of 
everything.  But  nothing  helps.  It  is  done — done.  If 
he  loved  me  " — a  sob  caught  at  her  throat — "  if  he  loved 
me,  it  ought  to  have  been  a  reason  for  him  against  this — 
this  that  he  has  done.  It's  not  a  reason  to  forgive  him — 
I  can't  feel  it.  I  have  prayed  to  feel  it.  I  have  prayed — " 
Her  voice  died  away.  She  avoided  her  companion's  eye. 

Margaret  looked  at  her  longingly,  tenderly,  helplessly, 
and  Dorothy  gave  back  her  gaze.  In  Margaret's  plain, 
wholesome  face,  in  her  genuine  eyes,  in  the  wide,  clear, 
benignant  brow,  Dorothy  read  goodness  and  strength — 
nothing  but  goodness  and  strength.  The  primness  and 
precision  she  had  been  used  to  fancy  in  her  seemed  re 
solved  into  these;  the  qualities  which  she  had  been  used 
to  wish  that  Margaret  would  let  her  like  in  her  seemed 
somehow  to  have  freed  themselves  from  the  old  bondage ; 


396  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

she  saw  that  she  had  in  some  way  misconstrued  or 
wrongly  imagined  her— or  perhaps  she  was  changed; 
perhaps  experience  had  taught  her.  Did  one  come  to  see 
things  differently,  then,  in  time  ?  Did  one's  way  of  look 
ing  at  certain  matters  alter  ?  Should  she  ever  think  dif 
ferently  of  Philip  ? 

Margaret,  on  her  side,  was  looking  into  Dorothy's  eyes, 
thinking  how  gentle  and  sweet  and  true  and  right-minded 
she  was ;  but  thinking,  too,  that  in  a  way,  a  very  remote 
way,  she  stood  where  she  had  once  stood— where  one  saw 
the  right  so  clearly  that  one  was  in  danger  of  not  seeing 
all  the  pity  of  the  wrong ;  where  it  was  hard  to  forgive. 
The  cases  were  not  at  all  the  same ;  it  was  the  youth  that 
spoke  in  Dorothy,  of  course— the  intense,  the  impulsive, 
passionately  certain  youth ;  and  it  was  not  youth,  whatever 
else  it  was,  that  had  worked  in  herself  to  the  same  ends. 
But,  at  all  events,  Margaret  felt  drawn  to  her  by  a  mys 
terious  bond  of  sympathy ;  she  felt  that  she  knew  enough 
of  her  state  of  mind  to  comprehend,  to  sympathize,  and 
she  yearned  to  say  certain  things  to  the  young  girl  beside 
her;  but  she  found  no  words  for  them.  Even  about 
Philip's  offence  itself  (a  simple  and  concrete  subject)  she 
could  not  trust  herself  to  speak ;  she  wished  only  to  say 
what  would  be  quite  true.  She  could  not  let  herself  com 
fort  Dorothy  against  her  own  conscience  about  what 
Philip  had  seemingly  done.  If  he  had  done  it,  it  was 
hateful  and  wicked  to  her ;  yet  there  was  another  point  of 
view.  Perhaps  Margaret  was  less  entirely  illumined  by 
her  experience  than  she  thought;  perhaps  none  of  us 
escape  out  of  ourselves,  through  any  experience,  beyond 
recall. 

She  rose  at  last,  and  Dorothy  rose  with  her.     "  I  don't 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  39? 

know  what  to  say,"  Margaret  said.  "  I'm  not  sure  what 
it  would  be  right  to  say.  I  am  not  sure  of  anything  any 
more.  But  you  will  let  me  come  to  see  you  again,  I  hope, 
and  we  can  talk." 

"  Oh,  come.  Pray  come,"  begged  Dorothy,  taking  her 
hand. 

"  And  you  won't  move,  yet  ?    You  will  wait  ?  " 

Dorothy  seemed  to  take  an  inventory  of  the  dismantled 
room  and  of  the  situation  in  her  swift  glance.  "  I  see 
what  you  mean,"  she  said,  in  a  moment.  "  But  I  daren't 
say  that.  The  thought  of  seeing  him  again,  of  meeting 
him — you  don't  know  what  it  is  to  me.  I  know  I'm  not 
reasonable  about  it,  but  I  feel  as  if  I  must  go  away.  I 
feel  as  if  we  should  only  be  happy  again — father  and  I — 
and  get  back  to  our  good  old  times  together  before — be 
fore  he  came,  by  going  to  some  place  a  long  way  off,  and 
very  different  from  this.  And  father  has  sent  in  his  res 
ignation  ;  he  wouldn't  like  to  recall  it."  She  pressed  her 
companion's  hand.  "  It  is  so  good  of  you  to  come — to 
care.  You  won't  think  me  ungrateful  if  I  can't  see  it 
quite  as  you  see  it — not  yet,  at  all  events? " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  how  I  see  it ! "  exclaimed  Mar 
garet,  hastily.  "  I  am  the  last  person  you  should  trust 
to ;  I  make  a  great  many  mistakes  ;  I  am  not  wise.  I 
used  to  be  very  certain ;  but  things  have  happened  to  alter 
that  lately.  I  am  not  sure  of  anything — but — but  per 
haps  this  is  true, — that  if  we  have  charge  of  men's  ideals, 
as  men  say,  we  mustn't  be  too  hard  in  judging  them  by 
thorn.  If  we  love  them,  we  must  wish  to  help  them  back 
to  them,  I  think,  when  they  fall ;  and,  at  all  events,  I 
don't  think  it  can  be  wrong  for  us  to  remember  always 
that  they  have  to  do  their  good  and  evil  in  a  different 


398  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

world  from  ours — a  world  we  don't  understand,  perhaps." 
She  gazed  over  Dorothy's  shoulder,  with  a  far-away  look 
in  her  eyes,  in  which  she  seemed  to  herself  to  be  question 
ing  and  resolving  her  own  future. 

"  But  right  and  wrong  remain — surely  they  are  the 
same  in  all  worlds,"  said  Dorothy,  bewildered  by  this 
strain  of  reasoning  from  Margaret.  "  And  our  loving — 
that  seems  to  be  just  it !  It  doesn't  matter  that  some 
one  for  whom  we  care  nothing  does  a  thing  beneath 
him.  When — when  another  does  it — "  She  did  not 
finish. 

"  I  don't  know — I  don't  know,"  mused  Margaret,  with 
the  same  far-looking  eyes.  "  It's  true,  of  course  ;  but  it's 
not  all  the  truth — or,  at  least,  there  is  a  better  truth,  per 
haps.  Love  is  better."  She  bent  over  and  kissed  her. 
"  Good-bye,"  she  said. 

Dorothy  watched  her  go  away,  with  many  feelings. 


XXX. 

MARGAEET'S  way  home  took  her  by  Dr.  Ernfield's 
office,  and,  as  she  passed,  she  heard  a  rap  on  the  window. 
Beatrice's  face  appeared  at  the  pane,  and  she  went  in,  at 
her  silent  gesture.  They  encountered  in  the  outer  office, 
where  Beatrice  whispered  that  Dr.  Ernfield  was  ill.  His 
long  ride  of  the  day  before,  followed  by  a  night  of  watch 
ing  at  Jasper's  bedside,  had  brought  on  another  haemor 
rhage. 

"  Is  Jasper  back,  then  ?  Is  he  ill  ?  "  Margaret  asked 
quickly. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  399 

"  Yes ;  he's  back,  and  he's  very  ill,"  returned  Beatrice ; 
and  in  a  hushed  voice  she  told  her  of  the  blizzard  in  which 
he  had  been  caught  on  his  way  back  over  the  mountains 
from  Mineral  Springs ;  how  he  had  spent  three  days  with 
out  food  or  drink  under  an  overhanging  rock,  dying  slow 
ly  of  exhaustion,  cold,  and  hunger ;  and  how  he  had  at 
length  been  found  by  a  lumber-team  going  up  0.  K.  val 
ley  for  a  load.  The  men  had  taken  him  into  the  town 
of  0.  K.,  and  he  had  been  laid  up  at  the  hotel  there  until 
now. 

"  Poor  fellow  ! "  exclaimed  Margaret.  "  Poor  fellow ! 
I  wish  I  could  go  out  and  nurse  him.  Is  he  alone  ?  " 

"  He  has  his  cow-boys." 

"  Cow-boys ! "  cried  she.  "  No ;  I  mustn't,"  she  added, 
after  a  moment's  meditation.  "  But  how  like  Dr.  Ernfield 
to  sit  up  with  him  !  Tell  me,"  she  said,  laying  a  hand  on 
her  companion's  arm,  "  he  is  better  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he's  better ;  but  he  has  been  very  ill.  Ned  is 
going  to  take  his  place  with  Jasper,  and  I'm  going  to  ask 
you  to  take  my  place  with  him  for  a  moment.  I  left  Ed 
ward  in  the  irrigating-ditch.  He  will  be  wet  through." 

Margaret  was  about  to  say  that  she  couldn't  stay,  that 
it  was  impossible ;  but  this  seemed  foolish,  on  reflection. 
She  put  off  her  shawl  in  the  outer  office,  and  went  in  to 
Ernfield,  while  Beatrice  silently  gathered  her  wraps  in  the 
inner  room.  She  hushed  Margaret's  entrance  into  the 
room  where  he  lay,  with  her  finger  on  her  lip.  He  was 
asleep,  she  saw.  So  much  the  better. 

Beatrice  indicated  with  her  finger  the  medicine  he 
was  to  take  next,  whispered  one  or  two  further  instruc 
tions,  and  glided  out,  saying  she  would  be  back  imme 
diately.  Margaret  gave  a  quick  glance  about  the  untidy, 
26 


400  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

mannish  room.  This,  then,  was  where  he  lived.  There 
was  an  unframed  medical  print  or  two,  and  some  stuffed 
specimens.  The  walls  were  almost  bare,  save  in  the  cor 
ners,  where  they  were  cobwebbed.  Margaret  could  never 
have  lived  for  a  moment  in  a  dishevelled  room.  The  deso- 
lateness  of  this  one  gave  her  a  pang  of  homesickness  for 
him.  She  saw  that  the  fire  was  dying  down,  and  looked 
about  for  wood. 

He  stirred  uneasily  as  she  softly  put  on  a  log,  and 
opened  his  eyes  on  her.  She  rose  quickly.  His  bewil 
dered  stare  broke  into  a  smile.  "  Have  you  taken  Mrs. 
Vertner's  place  ?  "  he  asked.  His  voice  was  quite  strong. 
Perhaps,  she  thought  to  herself — perhaps  he  would  yet 
live  to  conquer  his  disease,  and  to  take  his  place  in  life 
with  the  others.  She  knew  that  this  could  not  be,  that 
it  was  impossible ;  but  the  other  seemed  too  dreadful. 
They  faced  each  other  alone  for  the  first  time  since  the 
day  they  had  ridden  up  the  Ute  trail  together. 

"  It  is  good  to  see  you  again,"  he  said,  as  he  put  forth 
his  wasted  hand.  She  took  it  and  held  it  a  moment  si 
lently,  as  she  gazed  out  of  the  window,  thinking  of  many 
things.  The  sunlight  was  pouring  into  the  little  space 
of  Mesa  street  on  which  Ernfield's  rooms  looked.  From 
where  she  stood  she  could  see  the  office  of  the  "  Maverick 
Sentinel,"  which  she  recalled  as  the  name  of  the  paper 
she  had  cause  to  remember.  The  days  following  Deed's 
going  returned  to  her,  as  she  stood  looking  out  at  the 
sign  and  holding  Ernfield's  hand,  and  it  came  to  her  that 
it  was  Ernfield,  in  a  way,  whom  she  had  to  thank  for  her 
husband  and  her  happiness. 

The  wind  hid  the  office  of  the  newspaper,  and  "  St. 
Ann's  Rest "  and  the  post-office  next  door,  when  it  raised, 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  401 

as  it  did  from  time  to  time,  a  mighty  cloud  of  dust. 
Women  who  were  walking  would  sometimes  pause  before 
one  of  these  gusts,  and  turn  their  backs,  burying  their 
faces  in  their  muffs.  The  men  often  wore  protecting 
goggles  or  glasses,  and  seemed  to  take  the  wind  and  dust 
as  part  of  the  universal  joke. 

As  she  stole  a  glance  at  his  face  again,  and  saw  in  his 
look  the  illusory  brightness  and  vitality  of  the  consump 
tive,  grave  and  silent  tears  started  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  sha'n't  be  so  sorry  not  to  get  well,  after  all,"  he 
said  suddenly,  observing  her  from  under  his  half-closed 
eyelids.  She  looked,  he  thought,  even  more  than  she 
usually  did,  the  benignant  goddess  of  all  right-doing. 
He  was  conscious  of  an  absurd  wonder  whether  she  must 
dress  her  hair  in  that  way  because  she  was  herself,  or 
whether  she  had  to  be  herself,  having  once  brushed  those 
silky  brown  strands  back  from  her  forehead  in  that  severe 
fashion.  He  was  as  much  at  a  loss  to  say  why  he  liked 
her  way  of  parting  her  hair  uncompromisingly  from  fore 
head  to  crown,  without  a  decoration  or  extrusion  of  any 
sort,  and  smoothing  it  simply  down  to  the  ears,  where  it 
curled  back  in  a  way  that  made  him  long  to  tell  her  how 
utterly  nice  she  was,  as  he  was  at  a  loss  to  say  why  he 
liked  her — why  he  loved  her,  in  fine,  to  his  madness,  his 
torment.  "  I  sha'n't  be  so  sorry  not  to  get  well,"  he  re 
peated,  "  because  by  the  time  I  could  get  well,  Mrs.  Vert- 
ner  and  you  would  have  spoiled  me  past  remedy.  I 
shouldn't  be  able  to  resume  my  place  in  society,  decently. 
No  one  would  be  able  to  tolerate  me.  If  you  really  want 
me  to  have  courage  to  get  well,  you'd  better  go  before  it's 
too  late." 

She  answered  him  with  an  indulgent  smile  only. 


4:02  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Ah,  well,"  he  went  on,  "  it's  little  matter,  either  way. 
The  game  will  soon  be  np."  He  put  away  the  instinctive 
denial  that  leaped  to  her  lips,  with  a  gesture.  "  Don't  say 
it,"  he  asked  her.  "  There's  no  need."  A  whimsical  little 
groan  escaped  him  as  he  shifted  his  position.  He  stared 
at  her  in  far-away  thought.  He  caught  her  hand.  "  I 
thought  I  could  die  without  asking  it.  But  it  can't  hurt 
you — my  question — not  from  a  man  who  has  his  death- 
warrant.  Tell  me — are  you  happy  ?  " 

She  gazed  down  into  his  eyes  a  moment  doubtfully. 
She  felt  herself  choking  ;  she  nodded  painfully. 

"  Ah,  that's  good  ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  Good !  And  it's 
true  ?  "  He  turned  a  keen  glance  on  her.  "  Everything 
is  well  with  you  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head. 

He  regarded  her  for  a  moment  thoughtfully.  "  May 
I  guess  your  trouble  ?  "  he  asked,  with  a  deepening  of  the 
kindly  note  in  his  voice.  She  said  nothing.  "  Jasper 
told  me  a  long  story  when  I  was  called  to  him  last 
night." 

He  told  her  what  she  already  knew  about  the  origin 
of  Jasper's  illness,  and  how,  in  the  watches  of  the  night, 
as  he  sat  by  his  bedside,  he  had  poured  into  his  ears  the 
whole  narrative  of  his  relation  to  his  father  and  Philip. 
Margaret  flushed.  How  much  did  he  know  ? 

"  It  must  have  been  very  hard  for  you,"  she  heard 
him  saying. 

"  How  ?     What  ?  "  she  asked,  startled. 

"All  of  it.  You  can't  think  how  it  came  over  me, 
sitting  there  in  the  dark  with  him — what  you  must  havo 
suffered.  I  have  never  known  anything  of  it  all.  I 
have  fancied  things,  now  and  then,  of  course  ;  but  I  have 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  403 

always  liked  to  believe  you  happy,  and  I  didn't  allow 
myself  to  fancy  much.  The  truth  is  worse  than  my  fan 
cies.  It  must  have  been  very  hard  for  you,"  he  repeated. 

"  It  hasn't  always  been  easy,"  she  owned. 

"  Ah,  if  I  could  forget  the  time  I  tried  to  make  it 
harder  ! " 

"  Don't  think  that,  please.  It  was  you  who  made 
everything  plain.  It  was  you  who  helped  me.  Why — " 
she  hesitated, — "  I  don't  know  why  I  shouldn't  say  it.  I 
owe  you  my  happiness." 

"Do  you ? "  He  reached  up  and  took  her  hand 
again.  "Do  you?"  he  repeated.  "You  don't.  You 
mustn't.  But  perhaps  you  may,  too,  if  you  like,"  he 
added,  with  a  smile.  "  Leave  the  idea  with  me  for  a 
while.  I  sha'n't  need  it  long,  and  it  will  do  me  good. 
Yes,"  he  said  happily  to  himself,  "  I  could  go  away  with 
that  thought.  You'd  better  not  stay.  You'll  take  it 
back." 

"  But  it's  true." 

"  Is  it  ?  Well,  no  matter.  I  like  it  just  as  well  as 
false.  Your  seeing  it  that  way — that's  all  that  counts. 
And  about  the  happiness — you  manage  to  find  it  in  spite 
of  what  we  were  talking  of  just  now?  If  I've  given  it 
to  you,  I  want  more  than  ever  to  know  that  I  gave  you 
the  genuine  article." 

"  Yes ;  in  spite  of  that  and — some  other  things,  I 
think  I  may  say  I'm  happy.  Or,  at  least,  I  shouldn't 
know  how  to  choose  any  way  to  be  happier." 

"  There  are  other  things  ?  " 

"  Nothing  that  we  shall  not  solve  at  once  and  have 
done  with  forever.  Whatever  comes,  we  have  that  com 
fort  now." 


404:  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

A  shadow  passed  over  his  face  at  that  tiny  world- 
including,  Avorld-excluding  "  we  " ;  but  he  repeated  fer 
vently,  "  Good  !  good  !  " 

He  saw  her  eyes  light  suddenly  with  a  light  that  he 
had  not  brought  into  them.  She  went  to  the  window, 
and  rapped  briskly  upon  it.  A  figure  on  the  other  side  of 
the  street  turned  at  the  sound,  and,  recognizing  the  face 
at  the  window,  came  quickly  across  the  road. 

"  Excuse  me  if  I  leave  you  a  moment,"  she  said,  and 
turned  at  the  door,  with  a  beaming  face,  to  add,  as  she 
nodded  towards  him,  "  We  shall  know  now." 

When  she  had  opened  the  office  door  to  Deed  she  drew 
him  in  and  folded  him  in  her  arms,  and  then  held  him  off 
and  questioned  his  face,  reading  the  good  news  in  his 
smile  with  greedy  eyes.  Ernfield  in  the  next  room  turned 
wearily  to  the  wall.  She  found  him  so  when  she  ran  in 
for  a  moment  to  see  that  all  was  well  with  him.  Then 
she  returned,  and  questioned  Deed.  She  saw  before  he 
spoke  that  he  was  very  happy ;  his  face  had  taken  on  a 
radiant  look.  It  was  like  the  face  of  the  man  she  had 
known  in  the  year  before  their  marriage.  She  was 
conscious  for  the  first  time  how  old  and  worn  she  had 
grown  used  to  seeing  him  look.  He  was  not  looking  old 
now;  he  was  looking  young  and  buoyant.  Beatrice  came 
in  upon  them  before  he  could  give  her  his  news,  and  Deed 
must  greet  her,  and  Margaret  must  show  her  the  last 
medicine  that  Ernfield  had  taken,  and  must  linger  a 
moment  alone  by  his  bedside  to  say,  leaning  over  him 
as  she  buttoned  her  gloves:  "I  came  to  help  you,  and 
you  have  comforted  me.  It  was  always  the  way.  Some 
day  you  must  let  me  change  it;  you  don't  know  how 
much  I  should  like  to  feel  that  I  had  the  advantage 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  405 

of  you  in  that,  even  for  a  moment.  I  should  like  to 
help  you." 

He  stretched  up  his  hand  to  her ;  she  noted  with  pain 
how  frail  and  thin  it  seemed.  "  You  are  my  help,"  he 
said,  with  a  sad,  eager  smile.  "  I  think  you  know  that. 
It  is  you  who  make  things  possible  for  me." 

A  sudden  flood  of  compassion  filled  Margaret's  heart 
as  she  looked  down  into  his  weary  eyes.  In  the  great 
relief  which  had  come  to  her  at  sight  of  her  husband's 
face,  in  the  joy  of  having  him  back,  which  seemed  to  give 
him  to  her  as  if  for  the  first  time,  the  thought  of  this 
maimed  and  broken  life,  so  poor  in  joy  of  any  sort,  went 
through  her  with  an  afflicting  pain.  Her  own  share  in 
his  fate  enlarged  itself,  and  seemed  to  press  upon  her 
stiflingly  ;  myriads  of  memories  went  electrically  through 
her  brain.  So  poor — so  poor  he  was !  And  she  so  rich  ! 
She  stooped  with  an  irresistible  impulse,  and  pressed  a 
fleet  kiss  on  his  forehead  through  her  blinding  tears. 

She  seized  Deed's  arm  passionately  when  they  were 
outside,  and  walked  swiftly  with  him  towards  the  main 
street,  with  her  muff  to  her  face.  For  a  long  time  neither 
of  them  spoke.  Then  he  began  in  a  low  voice,  and  told 
her  his  news. 

When  the  servant  brought  Deed's  name  to  Dorothy 
next  morning,  she  experienced  a  sinking  of  the  heart ; 
but  she  renewed  her  resolution  with  a  stern  word  to  her 
self,  and  went  down  to  him.  As  she  took  his  hand  a 
little  shock  went  through  her  that  was  not  all  pain.  "  His 
father !  His  father  ! "  she  caught  herself  murmuring.  To 
him  she  said  in  a  scarcely  audible  voice,  "  I  am  very  glad 
to  see  you."  Her  manner  was  at  once  eager  and  -reluct- 


406  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

ant.  She  suddenly  looked  up,  encountered  his  kindly 
eye,  and  colored.  His  eye  was  at  the  moment  tenderly  stu 
dious  of  her.  He  saw  what  Philip  perceived  in  her  outward 
aspect,  at  least,  to  like.  As  she  stood  before  him  a  little 
shyly,  taking  his  hand  in  her  cordial  pressure,  and  lowering 
her  eyes  after  the  first  full,  frank,  pleading  meeting  with 
his,  she  seemed  to  him  very  charming. 

"  You  know  why  I  have  come  ?  "  he  said,  bending  over 
her. 

"About—" 

"  Yes ;  I  want  you  to  save  him." 

She  motioned  her  visitor  to  the  couch,  taking  a  chair 
herself.  "  Save  him  ?  "  she  repeated.  She  clasped  her 
hands  in  her  lap,  and  drew  herself  slightly  together  in 
unconscious  resistance.  She  had  instinctively  pushed  her 
chair  back  a  little  as  she  sat  down ;  she  found  the  mere 
potency  of  his  presence,  his  individuality,  vaguely  control 
ling. 

"  I  want  you  to  let  me  bring  you  together  again ;  and 
I  want  you  to  do  this  not  for  his  sake,  but  for  mine. 
AVhen  I  tell  you,  you  will  understand ;  and  you  won't 
think,  I  hope,  that  I  ask  as  much  as  I  must  seem  to.  Last 
night,  Miss  Maurice,  I  came  back  from  Leadville  happier 
than  men  often  are.  I  had  heard  great  news  of  him,  news 
that  changed  all  I  had  been  base  and  cruel  enough  to 
think  of  him.  I  wanted  to  hug  him.  Instead  I  found 
him  gone,  and  this  for  news  of  him — first  what  he  had 
done,  and  then  that  you  had  broken  with  him.  You  were 
right.  You  could  do  no  less.  I  understand  all  your  feel 
ing.  But,  Miss  Maurice,  you  must  take  him  back.  It 
was  I  who  took  Jasper's  mine." 

"  You  !  "  she  cried.     She  smiled  nervously. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  407 

"  Yes,  I.  Not  by  the  outward  rules  of  things.  That 
was  Philip's  part — to  seem  to  do  it.  But  the  real  doer  of 
an  act  is  the  one  behind  it  all  who  is  responsible  for  it. 
I  was  responsible  for  this.  You  know  what  I  did  against 
Jasper.  This  is  one  of  the  fruits  of  it.  If  I  had  not  done 
that,  this  could  not  have  happened.  I  made  the  situation. 
He  had  to  act  in  it  as  he  did.  The  blame's  mine.  Lift 
it  from  him  !  It's  that  I  want  to  ask  you." 

She  was  bewildered ;  she  did  not  know  what  to  say. 
She  stole  a  glance  at  him  where  he  sat,  and  perceived  the 
look  like  Philip's  look;  it  was  about  the  mouth  perhaps; 
it  was  his  smile  that  was  like  Philip's.  He  was  hand 
somer  than  his  son.  As  she  whipped  another  furtive 
glance  at  him,  she  found  herself  trusting  him ;  his  sturdy 
frame,  the  clear-cut,  powerful  face,  the  alert  and  genial 
eye — all  had  an  effect  of  gentle  force,  on  which  she  in 
stinctively  reposed.  To  her  it  seemed  that  he  looked  very 
right.  He  went  on  in  a  moment  to  tell  her  what  he  had 
learned  at  Leadville,  beginning  with  his  quarrel  with  Phil 
ip,  and  taking  pleasure  in  condemning  himself.  He  said 
that  he  had  made  an  egregious  and  wicked  mistake.  And 
then  he  made  her  see  (he  told  the  story  with  glistening 
eyes)  how  this  precious  boy  of  his,  whom  he  had  dared  to 
cast  off  for  a  fancied  baseness,  and  against  whom  he  had 
hardened  his  heart,  had  all  the  time  been  sheltering  and 
righting  and  saving  him  behind  his  back  by  the  most 
shameless  trick.  He  broke  down  in  the  midst  of  it. 
Tears  of  pride  filled  his  eyes. 

"  That  was  good,  that  was  noble  of  him,"  said  Dorothy 
quickly. 

"  And  you  will  forgive  him  ?  You  will  pardon  him  ? 
You  will  take  him  back  ?  " 


408  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Oh,  don't  you  think  I  want  to?  Don't  you  suppose 
I  long  to?  I  can't!" 

She  did  not  know  how  she  said  these  things.  It 
seemed  easy  to  talk  to  him,  but  difficult,  impossible  not  to 
do  what  he  wished.  The  effect  of  his  presence  grew  upon 
her  rather  than  diminished,  and  a  kind  of  diffidence 
lingered  in  all  she  said.  She  felt  keenly  how  much  he 
had  put  aside  to  come  to  her ;  that  gave  authority  to  all  he 
said — that,  and  the  sense  that  he  was  older  than  she,  that 
he  was  his  father,  that  he  was  in  trouble ;  and  she  felt  her 
own  young  girl's  feelings,  opinions,  judgments,  shrinking 
in  the  balance  by  the  operation  of  an  instinct  almost  like 
one  of  decorum. 

But  she  called  upon  her  resolution.  In  the  time  which 
had  passed  since  Margaret  had  left  her  she  had  gone  over 
the  question  between  herself  and  Philip  with  all  the  hon 
esty  she  could  find  in  herself.  She  had  forced  herself  to 
face  it  with  absolute  pitilessness  for  her  own  pride,  and 
for  all  that  might  be  merely  extraneous  or  selfish  iu  her 
feeling.  She  had  rehearsed  it  all,  as  well,  with  the  ten 
derness  for  him  which,  alas !  she  did  .not  need  to  force ; 
and  she  believed  that  she  had  taken  her  resolve.  It  was 
taken  in  bitterness  and  tears ;  but  it  was  fixed. 

Deed  leaned  over  from  his  place  on  the  couch,  and 
took  her  hand.  "  You  won't  punish  him  for  what  began 
with  me,"  he  said. 

"  I  see  what  you  mean,"  she  said  in  a  dry  voice,  out  of 
which  she  kept  her  feeling  as  she  could ;  "  but  I  fear  that 
can't  be  true  for  me.  I  can  perceive  it,  but  I  can't  feel  it. 
I  have  thought  a  great  deal  of  what  you  speak  of,  though, 
since  he — since  Philip  told  me  of  it ;  I  have  thought  of 
what  the  punishment  you  found  for  your  son  must  have 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  409 

cost  you,  I  mean,  and  of  his  gratitude;  and  I've  been 
very  sorry  for  you.  May  I  say  that  ?  " 

"  I  am  very  glad  to  have  you  say  it.  I  see  that  you're 
good,  that  you're  kind." 

"No;  don't  think  that,  please,"  murmured  Dorothy 
painfully.  "  I  am  hard ;  I  must  be  hard." 

He  regarded  her  for  a  moment  as  he  withdrew  his 
hand.  "Then  we  shall  understand  each  other,  Miss 
Maurice,"  he  said.  "  I  am  hard.  It  is  that  which  has 
brought  me  here.  If  I  hadn't  been  hard,  I  should  never 
have  got  myself  and  Philip  into  this  miserable  mess  with 
Jasper,  which  has  led  Philip  to  do,  now,  what  you  see." 

"  But  what  you  did,  and  what  he  has  done — they  are 
very  different.  What  you  did — do  you  mind  my  saying 
that  ? — may  not  have  been  right,  perhaps,  but  it  was  splen 
did." 

His  face  confessed  his  pleasure  in  her  praise,  but  he 
said  quickly :  "  Are  you  quite  sure,  Miss  Maurice,  that  if 
you  knew  all  Philip's  motives,  you  wouldn't  find  some 
thing  heroic  about  them,  too  ?  What  I  did  used  to  seem 
to  me  fine,  too  ;  it  doesn't  now.  But  it  makes  no  differ 
ence  ;  I  had  to  do  it,  and  every  one  near  to  me  has  had  to 
pay  for  it.  It's  taken  its  revenge,"  he  said  sadly.  "  I 
was  right,  perhaps ;  but  I  was  not  right  to  take  my  right. 
An  injury  began  with  that  which  has  gone  on  ever  since. 
There  was  no  injury  until  I  did  it  to  Jasper,  for  his  was 
what  I  made  it.  If  I  had  not  resisted  it — I  see  that,  now 
— it  must  have  stopped  there.  I  was  not  wise  enough. 
I  answered  his  villainy,  and  the  penalty  has  been  brought 
home  to  me  since  in  every  form  through  which  I  could  be 
made  to  feel.  It  has  not  always  been  myself  ;  it  has  been 
Margaret's  fate  to  suffer  for  it,  too,  and  now  it's  Philip's. 


410  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

Don't  force  him  to  suffer  more  for  it  than  you  must. 
That's  what  I've  come  to  beg  of  you." 

The  dignity  and  reality  of  his  trouble  affected  her 
deeply  as  she  listened.  Her  generous  instinct  to  rush  to 
the  aid  of  any  one  in  pain  or  difficulty  came  over  her.  But 
what  seemed  a  final  obstacle  rose  to  withhold  her.  She 
did  not  know  how  to  explain  it.  She  lowered  her  eyes  to 
her  lap.  "  Mrs.  Deed  came  to  see  me ;  she  has  been  more 
than  good.  She  will  have  told  you  how  I — what  I  feel," 
she  said  huskily. 

"  I  know.  It's  not  only  the  wrong  he  has  done  Jasper, 
culpable,  strange,  and  mistaken  as  that  is.  There  is  more 
to  forgive." 

"  Oh,  if  it  were  only  to  forgive !  That  would  be  easy. 
I  suppose  I  have  forgiven  now.  When  one  gets  over  the 
first  pain  and  shock,  one  forgives,  if  one  loves,  instinc 
tively.  But  that  is  nothing — a  form  of  words.  He  would 
not  care  for  that;  and  I  couldn't  offer  it  to  him.  What 
he  wishes  is  something  else.  The  only  thing  I  could  do 
that  would  do  any  good  would  be  to  bring  it  all  back, — 
our  old  relation— as  if  this  had  never  been.  I  can  wish  it 
back,  and  I  do.  But  I  can't  bring  it  back.  Nothing,  it 
seems  to  me,  can  do  that — nothing !  " 

"  You  mean  that  you  can't  bring  it  back  for  his  own 
sake  or  for  yours  ?  I  know  that.  Won't  you  try  it,  then, 
for  the  sake  of  some  one  outside  of  it  all — some  one  who 
has  no  claim  ?  " 

"  You  mean — "  she  began. 

"  Yes," he  answered  eagerly ;  "  will  you  do  it  for  me?" 
A  flush  mounted  to  her  face.  "  I  have  told  you  how  I 
wronged  and  misunderstood  him,"  he  went  on.  "  You 
know  how  he  has  rewarded  me.  You  see — I'm  sure  it's 


BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

natural  to  you  to  see  such  things — how  I  must  long  to 
do  something  for  him ;  how  I  can't  bear  to  think,  how 
ever  much  he  has  deserved  it,  that  he  should  be  un 
happy." 

Dorothy  looked  over  at  him  compassionately.  "  I  see 
that,"  she  murmured. 

He  leaned  forward,  and  took  her  hand  again.  "  He 
will  pardon  me ;  he  will  run  to  do  it.  But  I  can't  take 
his  pardon  on  those  terms.  You  understand.  He  has 
humiliated  me ;  he  has  heaped  burning  coals  of  fire  on 
my  head.  I  can't  face  him  in  his  trouble  empty-handed." 

"  No,"  she  murmured.     She  was  much  shaken. 

"  Listen,  my  dear  girl,"  he  went  on.  "  Do  you  think 
that  what  he  has  done  is  less  a  pain  and  trouble  to  me 
than  to  you  ?  Have  you  thought  how  he  is  repeating  my 
experience?  In  attacking  Jasper,  after  all  his  forbear 
ance,  he  is  beginning  as  I  began,  and  must  go  on  as  I 
have  gone  on.  You  see  that.  It  doesn't  make  what  he 
has  done  seem  less  wrong,  though  he  must  have  excuses 
of  which  we  know  nothing ;  but,  to  me,  it  makes  it  more 
pitiful.  You  understand  .how  I  can't  look  on,  and  see 
that  happening,  and  do  nothing  to  stop  it.  I  must  stop 
it.  0  Miss  Maurice,  I'm  sure  you  can't  have  the  heart  to 
let  him  stumble  on  into  the  mire  where  I've  been  strug 
gling  these  last  months — you  won't  let  him  do  that  for 
lack  of  a  word.  I'm  sure  you  will  help  me  ! " 

He  stopped,  and  a  great  pity  for  the  man  into  whose 
eyes  she  was  looking,  for  Philip,  and  for  the  situation 
Philip  had  made  common  to  both  of  them,  came  over  her. 
It  was  almost  impossible  to  her  not  to  try  to  help  them. 
"  Oh,  if  it  were  a  question  of  pity,  of  tenderness,  of  love, 
of  anything  but  what  it  is !  "  she  burst  out. 


412  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  But  finally  that  is  the  question — how  much  you  love 
him,  isn't  it  ?  And  is  anything  impossible  to  love  ?  " 

He  leaned  forward  suddenly.  "  My  dear  girl,  will  you 
let  me  tell  you  of  something  which  has  come  very  close  to 
me  ?  "  She  was  gazing  at  him  in  absorption ;  she  nodded 
tremulously.  "  You  will  understand,  if  I  tell  you  this, 
that  it  is  necessary — necessary  to  me  that  you  should  take 
him  back ;  you  will  see  that  I  couldn't  speak  of  it  for  a 
light  reason.  You  have  heard  how  I  abandoned  Margaret 
on  her  wedding-day  ?  " 

"  Oh,  don't  speak  of  that !  Don't  make  me  feel  that  I 
have  forced  you  to  speak  of  that,"  she  exclaimed  in  a 
kind  of  panic.  She  was  not  sure  of  what  she  was  saying. 

He  silenced  her  with  a  sad  and  gentle  gesture,  and 
sketched  the  occasion  of  his  difference  with  Margaret 
quickly.  "  You  see,"  he  said,  at  the  end,  "  I  had  no  ex 
cuse.  It  was  simply  a  monstrous  humouring  of  my  pas 
sion.  I  forced  her  to  pretend,  if  she  would  unselfishly 
save  me  from  myself,  and  then  savagely  punished  her  for 
it.  I  left  her  as  if  I  had  never  had  an  obligation  to  her. 
It  was  an  insult,  and  not  a  brave  one.  To  desert  a  wom 
an  on  her  wedding-day  could  never  be  a  handsome  thing 
to  do ;  in  this  case,  where  her  only  crime  was  caring  for 
me  too  well,  it  was  an  abominable  cruelty.  And  how  did 
she  reward  me  ?  Ah,  my  dear  girl,  you  know.  I  could 
never  come  back  to  her ;  she  knew  it.  She  knew  that  I 
had  shut  the  gates  of  paradise  behind  me,  and  that,  ex 
cept  for  the  chance  of  her  mercy,  I  must  remain  at  the 
decent  distance  I  had  chosen  for  myself,  cursing  my  folly, 
and  longing  vainly  for  her.  It  was  her  right  never  to 
suffer  me  to  so  much  as  see  her  again — a  thousand  times 
her  right.  I  had  outraged  her  pride  ;  I  had  wounded  her 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  413 

at  a  woman's  tenderest  and  dearest  point.  And  she  for 
gave  me  !  Don't  ask  me  how.  She  found  a  way."  He 
got  up  abruptly,  and  looked  down  for  a  moment  in  silence 
at  the  stooping  figure  in  the  chair  before  him.  Dorothy's 
head  was  in  her  hands.  She  was  weeping  bitterly.  "  My 
dear  girl,"  he  asked  with  grave  tenderness,  "  won't  you 
find  a  way  ?  " 

She  rose  and  put  her  hands  in  his. 

"  I  will  try,"  she  said,  lifting  her  tear-stained  face  to 
his  bravely. 

"  And  I  may  tell  him—" 

"  Tell  him  I  will  see  him." 

He  looked  at  her  long  and  questioniugly,  while  he 
held  her  hands. 


XXXI. 

"  BUT  you  didn't  tell  him  that  there  was  any  difficulty 
between  Miss  Maurice  and  Philip,  I  hope?  You  weren't 
such  a  dunce  as  that,  Ned  ?  " 

It  was  two  days  later,  and  they  were  seated  at  dinner, 
Margaret  had  secured  rooms  at  the  Centropolis  House 
against  Deed's  return  from  Pifion  (with  Philip,  she 
hoped),  and  had  taken  up  her  own  residence  there,  though 
she  was  much  at  the  Vertners'.  She  had  said  that  she 
felt  that  they — she  and  Deed — must  begin  to  think  of 
settling  down,  like  sensible  people  (she  had  begun  to 
make  plans  from  the  hour  in  which  she  heard  Deed's 
good  news  about  the  Leadville  business) ;  and  though  she 
did  not  pretend  that  apartments  at  a  hotel  were  even  by 


414  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

way  of  gratifying  this  ambition,  she  said  that  they  at  least 
did  not  constitute  a  step  in  the  other  direction,  like  stay 
ing  with  one's  friends. 

Vertner  arrested  the  carving-knife  with  which  he  had 
been  inquiring  his  way  to  the  joint  of  the  fowl  before  him, 
and  levelled  a  glance  of  scorn  at  his  wife  in  response  to 
her  question. 

"  Well,  I  should  hope  not,"  she  rejoined  to  this  dis 
claimer,  as  he  busied  himself  about  the  fowl  again.  And 
then  after  a  pause,  "  I  shall  always  say  it  was  very  good  of 
you  to  go  out  to  the  Triangle  to  see  what  you  could  do 
for  him,  Ned." 

"  Shall  you  ?  Well,  I  should  think  more  of  it  myself 
if  Jasper  interested  me  less.  I  didn't  go  to  nurse  him  ;  I 
went  to  take  a  look  at  him.  He  has  a  special  effect  on 
me ;  I'm  curious  about  him ;  I'm  always  wondering  what 
he  will  do  next." 

"  Well,  you  see  what  he  has  done  next  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  but  just  before  he  did  it,  I  thought  he  was 
going  to  do  something  else."  Vertner  asked  Edward  to 
hand  him  the  cranberries,  as  he  finished  cutting  some  of 
the  fowl  for  himself,  and  settled  himself  at  the  table  with 
the  conscious  pleasure  of  the  carver  who  has  earned  his 
contentment.  "  I  had  got  his  next  move  all  planned  out 
in  my  mind ;  I  thought  I  saw  that  he  had  seen  a  point 
which  dawned  on  me  while  I  was  sitting  with  him ;  per 
haps  he  has  seen  it, — indeed,  I'm  pretty  sure  he  has, — but 
he  hasn't  acted  on  it.  He  has  done  something  even  more 
brilliant." 

"  Do  you  call  it  brilliant  to  go  after  Mr.  Maurice  and 
Dorothy  by  the  next  train?" 

"  From  his  point  of  view — certainly.     Do  you  suppose 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  415 

Jasper  could  sit  still  under  the  thought  that,  after  all  that 
has  happened,  it  should  be  his  brother  who  succeeds  with 
her  ?  He  will  know  how  to  reconcile  himself  to  it  if  it 
happens;  but  he  isn't  going  to  let  it  happen  if  he  can 
help  himself.  The  first  news  that  reached  him  when  he 
was  brought  back  to  Maverick  was  that  they  were  engaged ; 
and  if  I  know  Jasper,  he  wanted  to  break  something  in 
celebration  of  that  news.  But  then  along  comes  Philip 
and  puts  a  weapon  into  his  hands,  and  he  rages,  but 
chirks  up.  He  sees  the  opportunity  his  brother  has  given 
him.  And  then  he  hears  that  the  engagement  is  broken 
on  account  of  the  same  affair,  and  that  pleases  him  down 
to  the  ground." 

"  But  how  did  he  hear  that  ?  And  how  do  you  sup 
pose  he  knew  that  Mr.  Maurice  and  Dorothy  were  going 
yesterday  afternoon,  when  no  one  else  knew  it?" 

"  Well,  I  think  I  could  imagine.  Who  has  always 
been  his  friend  here  ?  " 

"  Why,  Mr.  Maurice ;  but — " 

"There  is  no  'but.'  Maurice  was  angry  when  she 
broke  the  engagement,  of  course.  He  supposed  Philip 
was  the  rich  one,  then.  But  the  transfer  of  the  '  Little 
Cipher '  to  Jasper  changed  his  mind,  just  as  she  was  begin 
ning  to  change  her  mind  back  again.  I  don't  believe  he 
was  very  sorry  that,  if  the  '  Sentinel '  had  to  copy  that 
article  from  the  Laughing  Valley  paper  about  his  doings 
over  there,  it  should  choose  this  time  for  it.  Perhaps  she 
gave  him  more  definite  reason  to  believe  that  she  would 
forgive  Philip  than  she  gave  Deed.  At  all  events,  he 
wouldn't  care  to  keep  her  where  Philip  would  certainly 
find  her  within  a  day  or  two  and  make  it  up  with 
her.  He  decided  to  take  an  early  train,  for  various 
27 


416  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

reasons;  but  first  he  let  Jasper  know  where  he  was 
going." 

"  I  wish  we  knew.  I  begged  her  to  telegraph.  I 
knew  Margaret  would  never  forgive  me  if  I  didn't.  But 
I  wanted  to  know  for  myself.  I  am  very  sorry  for  her." 

"  So  am  I.  But  I  am  still  more  sorry  for  Deed  and 
Philip.  Think  of  Deed's  bringing  him  back  here  to  find 
her  gone !  He's  set  his  heart  on  this  thing.  He  is  in 
such  a  position  that  his  peace  of  mind  depends  on  his 
success  in  it.  I  sha'n't  forget  for  a  while  the  after-dinner 
cigar  I  smoked  with  Deed  the  day  before  he  called  on 
Dorothy.  I've  seen  men  crushed  before  ;  but  not  like 
that.  Well,  of  course  it  tore  him  up  to  have  to  feel  that 
Phil  had  turned  round  and  been  his  salvation  after  all. 
After  quarrelling  with  him,  and  casting  him  off  because 
he  thought  he  was  unfaithful  to  him,  it  was  pretty  rough. 
He  could  have  stood  it  to  know  that  he  had  been  in  the 
wrong,  and  that  he  had  accused  Philip  without  any  too 
much  excuse;  but  this  was  another  matter.  It's  awful 
for  a  generous  man  to  have  to  see  that  he  has  done  a  nasty 
thing.  From  the  hour  when  he  faced  the  fact  that  his 
son  had  really  been  fixing  things  up  for  him  at  Leadville 
— doing  his  best  to  stop  the  boomerang  Deed  had  started 
on  its  cheerful  career  before  he  left  Leadville,  using  the 
$50,000  he  had  flung  at  him  to  save  him,  and  generally 
toeing  the  mark,  and  doing  his  duty  like  a  little  man — 
from  that  hour  he  has  been  the  happiest  and  the  most 
miserable  man  going.  To  know  that  Phil  was  all  right 
tickled  him  to  death,  but  it  shocked  him  to  think  how  he 
had  used  him.  His  going  to  Dorothy  yesterday  didn't 
surprise  me.  He  didn't  say  he  was  going ;  but  it  was  the 
only  thing  left  to  him.  When  Margaret  told  him  about 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  417 

it,  I  guess  he  felt  that  this  little  rumpus  between  Miss 
Maurice  and  Phil  was  a  kind  of  providence.  It  gave  him 
a  show.  He  couldn't  take  Philip's  hand  again  until  he 
had  made  it  right  with  him,  somehow.  That  was  his 
chance.  He  took  it  and  won — or,  at  least,  if  Maurice  had 
let  things  alone,  he  stood  a  first-rate  chance  to  win.  And 
now  he  will  be  bringing  Phil  back  with  him  to-morrow 
morning,  both  of  them  all  ready  to  be  mighty  happy,  and 
I  don't  know  which  the  gladdest  to  be  friends  with  the 
other  again,  and  they  will  find  her  gone.  It  makes  me 
tired ! "  exclaimed  Vertner,  pressing  his  handkerchief 
nervously  to  his  brow,  and  ejaculating  the  slang  as  if  it 
had  the  force  of  a  phrase  sacred  to  grief. 

"  I'm  not  sure  whether  Philip  deserves  much  pity," 
said  Beatrice  after  a  moment.  "  Of  course  I'm  sorry  for 
him ;  but,  as  Margaret  would  say,  I'm  not  sure  that  I 
ought  to  be.  She  couldn't  do  anything  but  give  him  up 
after  he  had  done  such  a  thing." 

"  Perhaps  she  couldn't.  I'm  not  sure  that  another 
woman  (a  little  different,  or  a  little  older  woman :  say  a 
woman  of  thirty,  instead  of  a  girl  of  twenty-one)  might 
not  have  found  that  she  could  do  something  else  in  her 
situation,  though — dodge  round  a  bit,  and  find  her  feel 
ings  coming  up  in  unexpected  places  to  square  things 
with  her  conscience  or  her  other  feelings." 

"  It's  easy  for  men  to  say  such  things ;  and  perhaps 
you  are  right — about  some  women,"  responded  his  wife, 
after  a  moment.  "  But  you  can't  judge,  Ned.  You  can't 
feel  as  a  woman  must  in  such  a  case.  The  circumstances 
were  peculiar." 

"  Peculiar  mainly  in  his  not  being  so  allfiredly  guilty 
as  her  treatment  of  him  makes  out.  Of  course  it  isn't 


418  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

proper  to  take  your  brother's  mine;  but  that  isn't  the 
question.  The  actual  question  is  surrounded  by  a  thou 
sand  reasons  for  thinking  that  it  is  just  right  to  take 
your  brother's  mine,  and  that  it  might  be  a  hallowed 
duty.  Besides,  he  didn't  do  that — he  merely  failed  to  let 
on  that  he  had  once  thought  the  '  Little  Cipher '  would 
be  a  good  mine  to  give  to  his  brother." 

"  Pshaw,  Ned  !    You  exaggerate  ! " 

"  Well,  I'm  stating  the  case  for  the  defence.  You 
don't  expect  me  to  stick  to  absolutely  undecorated  facts, 
do  you?  Still,  I  stand  by  that.  That's  the  gist  of  it. 
You  get  into  a  hair-splitting  region  when  you  try  to  say 
whose  mine  that  actually  was.  My  mind  is  too  gross  for 
it.  And,  at  all  events,  you  must  admit  that  she  has  been 
pretty  hard  on  him  ;  she's  too  clear-headed.  Women  are 
that  way  when  it  comes  to  the  wrong-doings  of  the  man 
nearest  to  them ;  and  especially  if  it  touches  them  di 
rectly.  I  see  it  in  you  sometimes,  Trix;  but  Dorothy  is 
much  worse." 

"  Oh,  she  sees  things,"  owned  Beatrice. 

"  Sees  things !  Well,  I  should  remark — outside  and 
inside,  and  underneath,  and  all  around.  That's  what 
makes  me  pity  Phil.  No  man  can  stand  that  kind  of 
soul-plumbing,  straight-in-the-eye,  unforgiving,  undis- 
counting,  heavenly  stare.  We're  not  built  that  way — and 
Phil,  poor  fellow,  less  than  most  of  us.  Phil  makes  al 
lowances  for  himself;  he  knows  where  he  needs  them, 
and  he  puts  them  where  they  will  do  the  most  good.  It 
has  got  him  into  the  habit  of  thinking  that  other  people 
will  be  making  the  same  for  him ;  and  some  of  us  crude 
sinners,  who  know  how  it  is  ourselves,  make  them  right 
along,  and  glad  of  the  chance,  with  one  of  the  best  fel- 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  419 

lows  in  the  world.  But,  bless  my  soul !  is  that  the  way 
she  takes  him?  Is  that  the  way  any  woman  takes  a 
man  ?  Not  much  !  She  takes  him  on  the  ground  of  the 
fellow  she's  dreamed,  and  he  has  to  live  up  not  only  to 
the  man  she  thinks  him,  but  to  the  kind  of  man  she 
thinks  all  good  men.  It's  the  sort  of  thing  to  do  a  man 
good.  I  don't  deny  it.  It  puts  staff  into  him;  it's  a 
tonic  and  a  stimulant  and  a  bracer.  But  it's  hard,  con 
stant,  ticklish  work.  And  the  worst  of  it  is,  it  doesn't 
count — not  for  what  it  is.  Women,  dear  things,  fancy  it 
is  the  every-day  attitude  of  the  sex ;  and  when  some  fine 
morning  you  relax  a  bit,  you're  punished  not  on  the  basis 
of  what  you  are,  but  on  the  basis  of  what  she's  all  along 
been  thinking  you." 

"  Oh,  you  don't  get  any  more  than  you  deserve," 
laughed  Beatrice. 

"  It's  all  right.  I  don't  say  it  isn't.  I  only  say  that 
we're  entitled  to  warning;  it's  like  playing  poker  with 
out  notice  that  you  are  playing  '  straights.'  I  like  to  be 
familiar  with  the  rules  myself,  before  I  risk  my  money." 

"  The  rules  are  perfectly  simple.  You've  only  got  to 
be  good." 

"  You  call  that  simple !  I  fancy  Phil  wouldn't  agree 
with  you. — Shut  up,  son ! "  he  said,  in  an  aside  to  the 
young  man  who  was  strumming  on  his  plate  with  his 
spoon. 


XXXII. 

IN  the  late  afternoon  of  the  following  day  Dorothy  was 
sitting  on  the  piazza  of  one  of  the  smaller  hotels  at  Colo- 


420  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

rado  Springs  watching  the  sun  go  down  behind  Pike's 
Peak.  The  little  city  of  invalids  and  tourists,  which  has 
easily  one  of  the  loveliest  situations  in  the  world,  was  at 
one  of  its  best  moments.  The  sun  had  not  gone ;  the 
clear  air  seemed  clearer  for  the  tinge  of  rosiness,  and  the 
splendid  bulk  of  the  Peak,  cut  crisply  against  the  dying 
light,  looked  down  on  a  cluster  of  villas  and  hotels  in 
which  each  structure  seemed  to  stencil  its  Queen  Anne 
jaggedness,  or  Late  Colorado  vagaries  of  outline,  against  a 
sky  which  invited  stencilling. 

She  was  alone  on  the  piazza.  Some  of  the  other  peo 
ple  staying  at  the  hotel  (there  were  not  many)  had  made 
up  a  party  and  driven  over  to  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  and 
Manitou ;  two  or  three  young  men  had  gone  on  a  walk  to 
Cheyenne  Canon ;  some  ladies,  left  behind,  Avere  in  their 
rooms.  It  was  just  before  the  supper  hour,  and  the  ex 
cursionists  would  soon  be  returning.  Her  father  had  left 
her  half  an  hour  before,  saying  that  he  wanted  a  walk ;  he 
had  not  suggested  that  she  should  come  with  him,  and  she 
had  made  no  movement  to  accompany  him.  She  was  glad 
to  be  quiet  and  to  think. 

She  sat  thus  for  a  long  time,  meditating  about  many 
things,  and  working  intermittently  at  some  embroidery  in 
her  hands,  until  suddenly  she  felt,  rather  than  sasv,  a 
shadow  fall  between  her  and  the  sun,  and,  looking  up, 
perceived  Jasper.  She  rose  instantly.  A  shock  went 
through  her.  She  felt  herself  gazing  at  him  defiantly, 
and  then  she  saw  how  very  ill  he  looked.  His  face  was 
almost  spectral ;  its  old  firmness  was  gone.  His  hollow 
cheeks  and  cavernous  eyes  gave  her  a  start.  Her  glance 
roved  hastily  over  him ;  she  saw  that  his  clothes,  which 
had  been  used  to  set  so  trimly  on  his  figure,  hung  on  him 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  421 

with  an  almost  shambling  looseness.  In  her  surprise  she 
remained  motionless,  arrested  half-way  in  her  intention  to 
go  in  and  leave  him  standing  there.  He  perceived  his 
advantage,  and  said,  in  the  thin  and  wasted  voice  which 
had  replaced  his  former  manly  tones  : 

"  You  are  wondering  at  the  change.  Didn't  you  know 
that  I  had  been  ill  ?  " 

She  made  "  Yes  "  with  her  lips. 

"  But  you  didn't  think  it  was  so  bad  ?  It  was  a  close 
call." 

"  You  ought  not  to  be  out.  You  ought  not  to  be  up," 
she  said.  She  forgot  that  she  had  not  meant  to  speak  to 
him.  A  ball  of  worsted  with  which  she  had  been  work 
ing  fell  from  her  arms,  and  rolled  out  on  the  piazza. 
He  stooped  with  his  old  precise  courtesy,  and  restored 
it  to  her. 

"  I  had  a  very  good  reason  for  getting  up,"  he  said. 
"  I  heard  that  you  had  gone  away — that  you  were  leaving 
Maverick  for  good.  I  had  meant  to  wait  until  I  could 
come  to  see  you  in  the  usual  way ;  I  should  have  man 
aged  it  in  a  day  or  two.  But  your  going  made  everything 
different." 

"  Excuse  me,"  rejoined  Dorothy,  hastily.  "  I  can't 
allow  you  to  include  me  in  your  plans." 

He  smiled  tolerantly.  "  You  remember  our  last  meet 
ing,  do  you  not  ?  You  remember  your  promise.  I  have 
been  waiting  for  your  answer." 

In  all  the  reflections  which  had  contemned  Jasper,  and 
put  him  forever  out  of  the  case  for  her,  she  had  not 
thought  of  this — that,  in  form,  he  was  entitled  to  some 
word  from  her.  She  saw  that  it  put  her  for  the  moment 
in  the  wrong  with  him.  But  she  said,  with  disdain : 


422  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  I  didn't  think  it  necessary  to  tell  you  that  I  had  found 
you  out.  I  supposed  you  would  guess  that." 

Jasper  bit  his  lip,  and  waited  a  moment  before  reply 
ing.  He  had  determined,  in  seeking  this  interview,  to 
keep  his  temper. 

"  I  knew  that  you  had  resolved  to  break  faith  with  me 
when  I  heard  of  your  engagement  to  my  brother.  I  don't 
see  why  I  was  bound  to  suppose  that  your  reason  was  one 
discreditable  to  me." 

"  Break  faith  with  you  ?  "  she  repeated  scornfully. 

"  You  won't  say  that  you  hadn't  as  good  as  promised 
me ;  you  won't  pretend  that  if  you  had  never  said  a  word, 
you  had  not  still  given  me  the  right  to  believe  that  I  was 
something  more  to  you  than  another.  You  distinguished 
me,  you  encouraged  me ;  it  might  not  have  meant  great 
things  in  another  case.  But  you  haven't  forgotten  that 
we  were  once  betrothed ;  and  you  know  a  woman  doesn't 
single  out  for  favour  a  man  who  has  once  occupied  that  re 
lation  to  her  unless  she  means  something  in  particular." 

The  truth  of  this  came  over  Dorothy  helplessly.  She 
gathered  herself  to  confute  it,  but  before  she  spoke  she 
knew  that  he  had,  in  a  sense,  the  right  of  it.  It  was  not 
in  her  to  lessen  a  fault  because  it  was  hers;  rather  it 
pressed  on  her  the  more  closely.  But  she  saw  that  if  she 
let  Jasper  make  this  point,  it  must  be  the  end  of  every 
thing. 

"  Does  it  really  seem  to  you  that  you  have  a  right  to 
expect  the  same  consideration  as  other  men  ?  "  she  asked, 
looking  into  his  eyes. 

"  Why  not  ?    You  give  it  to  him." 

Dorothy  caught  her  breath  as  he  said  this,  not  bitterly 
or  heatedly,  but  with  the  quiet  manner  of  stating  a  con- 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  423 

sideration  which  she  had  omitted.  She  saw  all  that  he 
meant ;  it  quelled  her,  and  beat  her  down.  She  glanced 
at  him  where  he  stood  with  his  back  to  the  sun,  support 
ing  himself  lightly  against  a  pillar,  and  fixing  her  with  a 
glimmering  smile.  She  opened  her  lips  to  speak,  and 
closed  them  again,  thinking  better  of  what  she  had  been 
going  to  say.  But  in  a  moment  she  raised  her  head,  and 
said  quickly,  "  I  can't  discuss  that  with  you,"  and  made 
a  motion  to  pass  him. 

He  put  out  a  gentle  hand  to  stay  her.  "  Please  don't 
go  yet,  Miss  Maurice.  I've  left  a  sick-bed  and  come  a 
long  way  to  see  you.  I'm  sure  you  won't  refuse  to  hear 
me.  You  have  not  been  fair."  He  did  not  strike  this 
note  at  hazard.  She  stopped ;  he  had  known  she  must 
stop.  "  If  you  don't  think  me  worthy  of  ordinary  usage 
because  of  my  treatment  of  him,  what  do  you  think  of 
his  treatment  of  me  ?  " 

The  question  sent  a  chill  through  her ;  she  knew  what 
she  had  thought  of  it.  Was  that  still  her  thought  ?  Con 
fronted  with  her  own  sense  of  Philip's  act  balanced  in 
this  sort  against  her  sense  of  Jasper's,  she  had  suddenly 
the  need  to  take  refuge  in  any  denial  of  her  old  feeling. 
She  could  not  bear  to  think,  even  for  that  passing  mo 
ment,  that  a  feeling  of  hers  was  sanctioning  his  compari 
son.  For  a  moment  no  answer  befriended  her;  it  was 
because  from  one  point  of  view  there  was  no  answer,  she 
saw.  But  the  necessity  to  defend  him,  to  cry  out  against 
this  odious  grouping,  brought  her  the  certainty — the  sud 
den,  illuminating  certainty — that  hers  was  the  other  point 
of  view.  She  saw  surely,  for  the  first  time,  that  the  mood  . 
of  her  talk  with  Deed  was  a  finality ;  that  love  had  con 
quered  in  her.  It  was  her  love  that  spoke  now. 


424  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  And  have  you  the  courage  to  think  the  two  cases  in 
any  way  alike  ?  "  she  said. 

He  had  counted  on  her  inward  assent  to  the  sound 
ness  of  his  position.  He  had  it ;  but  he  was  dealing  with 
another  force  which  he  could  not  measure.  He  was 
shaken  by  the  assurance  with  which  she  answered.  Was 
he  mistaken,  then  ?  Had  she  not  thrown  Philip  over 
because  she  hated  the  injury  he  had  done  him?  He  had 
reckoned  on  this,  and  on  the  revulsion  of  feeling  towards 
the  injured  one  which  he  had  imagined  in  her  generous 
nature.  Taking  his  own  act  for  a  moment  from  what  he 
supposed  to  be  her  standpoint,  and  putting  it  at  its  worst 
(he  knew  what  to  think  of  it  himself,  but  he  could  fancy 
her  ignorant  objections  to  it  readily  enough),  in  what  way 
could  she  in  justice  feel  it  to  be  more  heinous  than 
Philip's?  Jasper  was,  of  course,  better  at  almost  any 
thing  than  in  estimating  the  moral  value  of  his  own 
actions ;  his  sincerity  in  believing  them  "  all  right "  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  man  who  didn't  pretend  to  the 
priggishness  of  being  better  than  his  neighbours  dis 
abled  his  usual  cleverness  at  this  point.  But  he  saw 
his  mistake,  and  manoeuvred  an  inward  retreat,  and 
brought  himself  into  line  at  another  place  before  he  an 
swered. 

"Suppose  I  say  I  have  that  courage?"  He  stroked 
his  mustache  lightly.  Its  rich,  bright  abundance  made 
the  cheek  behind  it  seem  paler. 

She  met  his  eye  fearlessly.  "  I  should  ask  you  if  you 
had  given  your  brother  back  the  share  in  the  ranch  you 
took  from  him  if  I  believed  you." 

"  Why  should  I  ?  " 

"  Why  should  you  ?  " 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  425 

"  Yes.  It  is  mine,  for  one  thing ;  but  that  apart,  he 
hasn't  done  as  much  for  me." 

"  But  he  has  restored  the  mine  to  you — he  has  surren 
dered  everything." 

"  The  mine,  yes ;  but  not  everything.  There  is  a  mat 
ter  of  $5,000." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  She  swept  a  thousand  possi 
bilities  with  her  mental  vision  while  she  waited  for  his 
answer,  and  rejected  them  one  after  another. 

"  My  precious  brother  negotiated  the  loan  of  that  sum 
on  the  security  of  the  mine,  I  find.  That  was  one  of  the 
first  things  he  did  with  his  borrowed  claim." 

"  It  is  not  true,"  said  Dorothy,  simply. 

"  You  might  ask  your  father." 

"  My  father  ?  "  exclaimed  she. 

"  Philip  borrowed  it  for  him.  It  was  at  a  time  when 
your  father  found  it  inconvenient  to  owe  me  as  much  as 
that."  He  smiled  with  intention. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that — that — "  she  gasped. 

"  That  I  had  the  presumption  to  lend  your  father  as 
much  money  as  that?  Yes.  I  suppose  I  mustn't  expect 
you  to  like  it,  but  I  did  it." 

"And  he — he  took  it  from  him  to  pay  you ?" 

Jasper  nodded.  She  gave  a  little  moan,  and  sank  into 
one  of  the  seats  on  the  piazza. 

The  young  men  who  had  gone  for  a  walk  to  Cheyenne 
Canon  were  visible  on  the  road  before  the  hotel.  Their 
woollen  stockings  and  knee-breeches  were  covered  with 
dust ;  they  came  along  at  a  swinging  pace,  laughing  and 
talking.  They  passed  into  the  house  through  the  wide 
entrance,  casting  a  glance  of  polite  curiosity  at  the  intent 
group  at  the  further  end  of  the  piazza. 


426  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Will  you  do  me  a  kindness  ?  "  she  asked  in  a  husky 
voice,  as  he  dropped  into  the  seat  beside  her.  He  pro 
tested  his  eagerness.  "  Go  away,  please  ! "  she  entreated. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  exclaimed  Jasper,  as  if  he  had 
not  understood. 

"  Please  go  away.  You  have  made  me  hear  it.  I 
couldn't  help  that.  But  you  won't  stay,  now."  She 
paused,  and  clasped  her  hands  before  her.  A  wretched 
sigh  escaped  her.  "  Oh,  how  could  he  ? "  she  cried  to 
herself,  in  the  words  she  had  once  used  for  Philip. 

"  You  are  not  fair,  Miss  Maurice,"  he  said,  rising  with 
dignity.  "  Am  I  to  blame  because  my  brother  has  chosen 
to  borrow  money  on  my  mine,  and  has  failed  to  return  it 
to  me  ?  Am  I  to  blame  because  your  father  chooses,  for 
reasons  of  his  own,  to  make  such  an  arrangement  with 
your  affianced  husband  ?  " 

"Oh,  don't!  don't!  Have  you  no  manliness ?"  She 
felt  her  cheeks  burning  with  the  horror  of  the  ideas  that 
were  coming  to  her ;  she  turned  away  to  hide  their  shame 
ful  confession.  She  was  trying  not  to  hate  her  father; 
she  was  searching  for  excuses  for  him.  Was  it  to  this, 
then,  that  Mr.  Deed's  allusion  to  Philip's  motives  pointed? 
Was  it  her  father  that  she  must  blame  for  what  Philip 
had  done  ? 

"  Is  the  truth  so  hard,  then  ? "  Jasper  was  asking. 
"  Would  you  rather  believe  what  you  wish  to  believe  ? 
Would  you  rather  think  well  of  certain  persons,  even  if 
you  knew  it  was  not  the  truth  ?  But  I  needn't  ask.  You 
take  the  side  towards  which  you  are  drawn  for  the  mo 
ment — like  a  woman ;  and  everything  is  indifferent  to 
you  but  the  illusions  by  which  you  make  yourself  think 
that  the  right  side  at  all  hazards.  The  truth  doesn't 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  427 

matter  to  you — nor  justice,  nor  fairness.  You  needn't 
tell  me  that ;  I  know  it,"  he  said. 

She  winced ;  the  stroke  was  well  aimed.  "  You  know 
much  better  than  that,"  she  answered  feebly. 

"  Say  rather  that  I  used  to  know  better.  But  I  knew 
it  of  another  woman,  I  think.  The  woman  I  used  to 
know,  Miss  Maurice,  couldn't  be  so  resolved  to  think 
badly  of  a  man  who  has  openly  taken  his  right,  and  so 
determined,  at  all  costs,  to  think  well  of  a  man  who -trades 
on  his  brother's  ignorance  to  cheat  him  out  of  his  prop 
erty."  She  shrank  where  she  sat,  and  he  pressed  home 
his  advantage.  "  Is  it  the  motive  that  makes  the  differ 
ence  ?  Is  it  so  wrong,  then,  to  take  what  belongs  to  one, 
without  malice,  or  double  thoughts,  or  hope  of  any  gain 
but  the  plain  one ;  and  is  it  so  right  to  take  what  does 
not  belong  to  one,  with  the  admirable  motive  of  revenge, 
and  the  other  admirable  motive  of  winning  a  sneaking 
advantage  with  a  woman  ?  Ah,"  cried  he,  bitterly,  "  it 
makes  a  difference  who  does  such  things,  and  even  more 
it  makes  a  difference  for  whom  they  are  done  ! " 

"  Oh  no,  no  ! "  she  began  vehemently.  But  she  sank 
back  in  her  chair  helplessly.  She  shook  her  head.  "  You 
would  not  understand." 

His  voice  took  a  note  of  tenderness  as  he  dropped 
again  into  the  seat  beside  her,  and  said  in  low  tones :  "  Are 
you  sure  of  that,  Miss  Maurice  ?  I  think  I  know  what 
you  have  been  thinking  of  me  these  last  few  weeks,  since 
we  met.  You  have  heard  things  about  me  which  couldn't 
make  you  think  well  of  me.  But  I  want  you  to  do  me 
the  justice  to  remember  that  they  were  not  told  you  by 
my  friends.  There  are  always  two  sides.  It  would  be 
fair  to  hear  mine  before  judging.  But  I  don't  ask  you  to 


428  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

do  that.  Suppose  I  admit  all  that  you  are  thinking ;  sup 
pose  I  say  that  I  see  it,  in  a  degree,  from  your  own  point 
of  view ;  suppose  I  agree  to  make  it  right  with  my  father, 
to  restore  what  he  thinks  I  came  by  unfairly ;  suppose,  in 
other  words,  I  agree  to  take  your  view — would  you  care, 
would  it  make  a  difference  to  you  ?  " 

She  glanced  up  at  him  in  bewilderment.  "  I'm  not 
sure  that  I  know  what  you  mean,"  she  said  quickly.  "  I 
couldn't  care  that  you  should  agree  with  me,  merely  to 
agree.  You  must  know  that.  But  the  other — "  She 
paused  a  moment.  "  You  must  be  equally  sure  that  I 
should  be  glad  of  anything  that  made  you  think  it  right 
to  do  that,"  she  said  gravely.  It  was  difficult  to  think  of 
anything  but  the  near  and  personal  trouble  which  was 
gnawing  at  her  heart ;  but  his  suggestion  opened  vistas — 
it  stimulated  and  engaged  her. 

"  Would  you  care  so  much  then  ?  "  he  asked,  regard 
ing  her  curiously. 

She  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Yes ;  very  much,"  she 
said  heartily.  "  I  have  seen  your  father.  Knowing  him 
has  given  me  a  great  wish  to  help  him.  If  you  could  see 
how  what  you  did  has  wounded  and  broken  him,  you 
would  wish  to  do  what  you  say  even  more  than  I  could 
wish  to  have  you  do  it." 

"  He  hasn't  treated  me  well,"  said  Jasper,  laconic 
ally. 

"  No,"  rejoined  Dorothy,  eagerly.  "  It  was  only  what 
you  might  have  expected  him  to  do ;  it  was  only  what  he 
had  a  right  to  do  by  the  code  most  of  us  live  by ;  but  he 
too  feels  that  it  was  a  mistake.  Or  perhaps  I  ought  to 
say  that  he  feels  it  wasn't  as  right  as  it  seemed  to  him  at 
the  time." 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  429 

"Well,  that's  a  step,"  admitted  Jasper.  And  he 
added,  "  He  did  me  a  beastly  injury." 

"  And  what  had  you  done  to  him  ?  " 

"  I  had  taken  my  rights." 

"  Yes,"  said  Dorothy,  with  intention. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  they  were  not  my  rights  ?  He 
had  given  them  to  me  himself." 

"  No ;  I  don't  mean  that,"  said  she,  quietly.  Her  as 
sent  maddened  him  more  than  any  denial  could  have  done. 
It  gave  him  a  feeling  of  helplessness  absolutely  singular 
in  his  experience. 

"  Oh,  I  know  what  you  mean,"  he  retorted  bitterly. 
"  You  mean  that  you  despise  me."  Philip's  words  came 
back  to  her,  and  she  wondered  how  she  had  ever  borne 
to  hear  them  from  him,  and  allowed  him  to  go  from  her 
feeling  that  what  he  said  was  true. 

"  No,"  she  said  gently. 

"  It's  the  same  thing.  I  don't  thank  you  for  the  dif 
ference.  But  you  shall  think  differently  of  me !  "  He 
rose  quickly  and  stood  before  her.  "  Listen.  I  have 
passed  three  days  face  to  face  with  death  since  we  met 
last.  Perhaps  I  am  not  the  same  man  you  have  known 
in^all  respects."  His  husky,  inadequate  voice  gave  the 
statement  meaning,  almost  gave  it  reality.  "  Would  you 
believe  me  changed  if  I  were  to  say  so?"  He  looked 
closely  at  her. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said,  looking  up  at  him  doubt 
fully.  A  new  light  came  into  her  eyes.  "  Such  things 
do  change  a  man." 

"  You  imply  a  doubt  whether  they  would  change  me. 
But  you  shall  believe  it,"  he  said  fiercely.  "  I  will  go  on 
to  Maverick  to-day  and  withdraw  the  suit  against  my 


430  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

father  which  is  to  come  on  to-morrow ;  I  will  give  up  to 
my  brother  the  share  in  the  ranch  which  my  father  claims 
for  him." 

"  You  will ! "  exclaimed  she.  "  Oh,  I  shall  be  glad  for 
your  father."  Her  eyes  left  him  musingly  in  a  happy  look. 

"  And  for  me  ?  " 

She  glanced  inquiringly  at  him.  She  brought  herself 
back  to  the  consideration  of  his  relation  to  his  proposal 
with  an  effort.  "  Oh,  I. shall  be  very  glad  for  you,  too,  of 
course." 

His  face  fell.  "  Is  that  what  you  mean  ?  "  he  asked. 
"  Is  that  all  you  mean  ?  " 

"I  shall  feel  it  is  good  of  you — from  your  point  of 
view ;  yes,  very  good." 

He  bit  his  lip.  It  was  hardly  this  measured  approba 
tion  that  he  had  sought.  She  saw  the  defeated  look  on 
his  face,  and  with  a  movement  of  compassion  and  self- 
accusal,  she  rose,  holding  out  her  hand  to  him.  "  I  shall 
think  better  of  you,  if  that  is  what  you  mean.  It  is  gen 
erous,  it  is  right." 

He  held  her  hand  firmly,  searching  her  eyes  with  a 
piercing  gaze.  "  How  much  better  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  withdrew  her  hand.  "  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  she 
asked  in  confusion. 

"  I  am  ready  to  do  all  that  there  is  to  do  to  show  my 
sincerity." 

"  Yes,"  assented  she,  bewildered ;  "  that  is  true." 

"  Will  you  do  nothing  for  me  ?  " 

"What  do  you  wish?" 

"  Believe  in  me  again."     He  stooped  over  her. 

"  I  will.  I  do."  She  withdrew  herself  from  him  a 
little,  vaguely  alarmed  by  his  manner. 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  431 

"You  know  very  well  what  I  wish,  Dorothy.  Believe 
in  me  as  you  used  to." 

"  I  can't  do  that,"  she  said,  looking  into  his  eyes,  un 
faltering.  Her  breath  came  quickly. 

"  Would  it  be  such  a  miracle,  then  ?  " 

She  nodded. 

"  Ah,"  cried  he,  "  you  can  work  for  him  I " 

"  It  is  not  the  same,"  she  stammered. 

"  No,"  he  rejoined ;  "  it  is  not  the  same.  It  should 
be  much  more  difficult.  He  won  you  from  me  through 
this  mine." 

"  Oh,  don't  say  it ! "  begged  Dorothy. 

"  And  he  has  not  scorned  to  take  a  more  material 
profit  from  that  villainy.  What  is  he  giving  up  ?  You 
made  that  the  test  a  little  while  ago.  By  that  measure  do 
I  show  so  badly  ?  " 

"  He  will  pay  you  the  money,"  she  said  desper 
ately. 

"  Perhaps.  I  don't  know.  It  wouldn't  be  unlike 
him,  you  must  own,  if  he  didn't.  But  can  he  give  me 
back  what  else  he  has  taken  from  me  ?  " 

"What?"  she  asked  in  a  half  whisper,  though  she 
knew  what  he  would  say. 

"  You!  Can  he  pay  that  debt?  Can  he  give  you 
back  to  me  ?  "  Dorothy  dropped  her  eyes.  He  took  her 
hand  and  bent  over  her  tenderly.  She  seemed  suddenly 
stricken  powerless ;  she  could  prevent  nothing.  "  It  is 
only  you  who  can  pay  that  debt  for  him,"  he  said. 

His  weakened  voice  had  a  winning  note  in  its  effect 
iveness.  For  the  space  of  an  instant,  while  she  stood 
there  arraigning  Philip,  as  he  meant  her  to,  and  liking 
his  own  surrender  as  he  had  hoped,  something  in  her — 
28 


432  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

an  effect  of  nerves  rather  than  of  impulses,  even  the  most 
trivial — responded  to  him.  The  plea  was  ingenious ;  it 
addressed  itself  with  overwhelming  force  to  a  whole  side 
of  her  nature ;  for  a  moment  she  felt  as  if  she  was  about 
to  be  carried  off  her  feet — towards  what  she  knew  not. 
Not  away  from  Philip,  certainly ;  but  at  least  towards  the 
man  by  her  side.  She  felt  the  dangerous  stirrings  of  pity 
at  her  heart.  But  a  moment  later  she  glanced  up  and 
saw  him  watching  her,  and  another  thought  came  into 
her  mind. 

Then  she  spoke.  "  It  does  not  seem  to  me  a  debt ; 
but  if  it  were,  you  must  know  that  I  could  not  pay  it," 
she  said  steadily. 

A  look  of  bitter  disappointment  crossed  his  counte 
nance. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  ?  "  he  asked,  scanning  her  face. 

"  Yes." 

"  Yet  you  expect  me  to  pay  my  debt,"  he  said  bitingly, 
"  — what  you  regard  as  mine.  You  expect  me  to  restore 
to  my  father  and  to  him."  It  was  a  question,  though  he 
put  it  forth  as  a  statement. 

"  I  expect  nothing.  You  wish  that  for  yourself,  do 
you  not?" 

Jasper  smiled  sardonically.  "  Do  you  suppose  that  I 
can  wish  for  anything  apart  from  my  wish  for  you  ?  You 
don't  know  how  I  love  you — you  have  never  known.  Say 
that  we  may  be  again  as  we  once  were,  and  you  will  see 
what  I  would  be  strong  enough  for.  YTou  could  do  what 
you  would  with  me." 

Her  eyes  blazed  with  sudden  intelligence.  "  Do  you 
mean  to  say — do  you  dare  to  say,"  she  said  shakenly,  "  that 
you  would  only  do  what  you  have  been  proposing  to  do,  if 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  433 

— that  you  would  not  do  it  unless —  Oh !  oh  !  And  you 
offered  it  as  a  bribe  !  Oh,  go !  go ! " 

He  caught  her  hands,  and,  prisoning  them  in  his, 
looked  down  steadfastly  into  her  eyes,  with  a  long,  intent, 
hungry  look.  An  expression  of  acute  misery  came  over 
his  face.  "  Ah,"  he  cried  desperately,  "  now,  you  do  de 
spise  me ! " 

She  lowered  her  eyes.  She  did  not  answer.  He 
dashed  his  hand  to  his  face,  and  without  a  word  walked 
quickly  away  from  her  side,  and  out  into  the  roadway 
before  the  hotel,  with  the  uncertain  steps  of  a  sick  man. 

Dorothy  stood  where  he  had  left  her.  She  heard  his 
retreating  steps,  but  did  not  look  round.  Her  eyes  were 
fixed  on  the  rosy  summit  of  the  peak.  As  she  looked,  the 
sun  suddenly  went  down.  A  chill  was  borne  to  her 
through  the  air,  and  she  started.  She  perceived  that  she 
must  have  been  standing  so  a  long  time.  She  put  her 
hand  to  her  face.  There  were  tears  in  her  eyes,  too.  She 
saw  her  father  coming  towards  the  hotel  from  the  direc 
tion  opposite  to  that  which  Jasper  had  taken,  A  chill 
went  through  her  for  another  reason. 


XXXIII. 

MARGARET  stood  in  the  window  of  her  sitting-room 
at  the  Centropolis  House,  which  commanded  a  view  of  the 
arrival  platform  of  the  railway,  and  exchanged  signals 
with  Deed  as  he  alighted  from  his  train,  on  his  return 
from  Pifion.  She  saw  Philip  follow  him,  with  their  hand- 
luggage,  and  as  he  set  it  down  on  the  platform,  he  too 


434  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

glanced  up  at  her  window,  and,  catching  her  eye,  waved 
his  hat  towards  her,  with  a  smile  of  greeting.  Then  Vert- 
ner  seized  upon  them,  and  she  saw  him  going  through  the 
hopeless  struggle  to  tell  them  only  so  much  of  the  truth 
as  he  thought  they  would  like;  with  a  beating  heart  she 
saw  her  husband  pressing,  insisting,  and  finally  pinning 
him,  and  Vertner  going  through  the  stages  of  impotent 
yielding,  burlesquing  his  helplessness  with  desperate  ges 
tures.  She  saw  her  husband  cowed  and  dazed,  as  she  had 
feared,  by  his  news,  and  saw  Philip  fall  upon  Vertner  with 
questions.  Then  it  was  Vertuer  who  took  the  initiative, 
and  he  forcibly  pulled  into  the  conference  the  conductor 
of  the  train,  who  was  passing  them,  left  them  for  a  mo 
ment  to  dash  into  the  hotel,  bestirred  himself,  bustled 
about,  and-  finally  pushed  Philip  on  the  train  again, 
handed  his  valise  up  to  him,  and  waved  a  gay  and  cheer 
ing  hand  to  him,  as  the  train  pulled  out  of  the  station. 
Deed,  when  he  had  seen  the  last  of  the  train,  turned  and 
challenged  Vertner  again,  and  they  talked  soberly  for  some 
moments. 

They  were  palpitating  moments  to  Margaret.  Since 
Dorothy  had  so  suddenly  left  Maverick  with  her  father 
she  had  been  in  a  distracted  state.  It  seemed  as  if  she 
was  almost  to  blame  for  it — as  if  she  could  have  prevented 
it  if  she  had  not  gone  at  Mrs.  Felton's  invitation  for  a 
long  drive,  on  that  day,  to  Loredano;  and  returned  only 
to  find  them  both  gone,  leaving  no  trace  save  a  confused 
and  hurried  note  from  Dorothy,  which  told  her  nothing. 
She  quailed  before  the  thought  of  what  this  failure  of  his 
hope  must  be  to  her  husband. 

She  heard  his  quick  step  in  the  passage,  and  ran  to 
admit  him.  When  she  had  kissed  him  she  searched  his 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  435 

face,  and  withdrew  herself  from  his  embrace  in  alarm, 
recognizing  the  set  look  of  resolve  she  remembered  from 
the  fatal  day  on  which  he  had  left  her  to  go  and  right 
himself  with  Jasper. 

He  went  to  the  window,  while  she  watched  him  anx 
iously,  and  cast  a  glance  up  and  down  the  track.  Then 
he  dropped  restlessly  into  a  seat,  and  fixed  his  eyes  deject 
edly  on  the  carpet.  She  took  a  seat  opposite  him ;  when 
he  glanced  up  she  was  shocked  by  his'  haggard  and  des 
perate  face.  Again  she  saw  in  it  that  look  of  a  man  whose 
fight  was  done. 

"  I've  got  to  stop  this,"  he  said  briefly. 

"What,  James?" 

"  The  whole  of  it.  Have  things  been  going  so  well 
with  us  for  the  last  six  months  that  I  need  say  ?  You 
know  what's  happened  ?  " 

She  nodded,  with  her  eyes  intent  upon  him. 

"  She's  gone ;  Jasper's  with  her  ;  I've  failed.  That's 
the  end  of  it.  I  say  I've  got  to  stop  it." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  be  glad — glad  ! "  she  whispered,  trying  to 
trust  him  because  she  had  learned  that  lesson,  but  in 
wardly  filled  with  anguishing  doubt. 

"  I've  been  a  fool.  Since  Jasper  paid  us  his  visit  at 
Mineral  Springs  I've  known  that ;  you  showed  it  to  me ; 
and  instead  of  owning  up  on  the  spot,  and  doing  what 
was  left  to  redeem  you  and  me  from  the  consequences  of 
my  folly,  I've  been  blundering  on  since  trying  to  deny  it 
to  myself,  and  trying  hard  to  believe  that  I  could  invent 
some  new  way  to  whip  the  devil  around  the  stump,  and 
avoid  what  I — what  I  didn't  want  to  do,"  he  ended  hus 
kily.  "  It  would  have  worked  if  it  had  only  been  a  ques 
tion  of  myself  or  you ;  I  dare  say  I  could  have  found 


436  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

obstinacy,  and  pride,  and  reckless  selfishness  enough  for 
that."  He  sighed.  "But  Philip  makes  all  the  differ 
ence." 

"  Yes,"  said  Margaret,  still  in  a  whisper. 

"  Even  with  him,  I  thought  I  could  help  him  to  dodge 
the  penalty;  I  thought  I  could  hoax,  or  blind,  or  buy  off 
fate  in  his  case.  But  Jasper  has  got  in  his  blow  in  return 
already  ;  the  infernal  business  of  give  and  take  has  begun. 
The  boy  has  got  to  repeat  my  experience,  unless — unless 
— he's  paid  ;  he's  restored  ;  it  makes  no  difference.  There 
is  a  sore  underneath.  We  must  cure  that  first.  My  fault 
is  so  hopelessly  mixed  up  with  his  that  nothing  he  can  do 
can  really  help  him.  It's  I  who  have  to  do." 

"  But  what,  James  ?  "  cried  Margaret,  in  an  alarm  she 
could  no  longer  hide.  "  But  what?" 

He  returned  her  frightened  look  with  a  tender 
one.  "  Jasper's  suit  against  me  comes  on  to-mor 
row." 

"  Yes,"  she  assented  breathlessly. 

"  If  it  is  decided  in  my  favour  the  fight  merely  shifts ; 
it  doesn't  end.  If  it  is  decided  against  me,  am  I  likely  to 
bear  it  well?  Do  you  think  I  could  resist  striking  back? 
That  is  the  way  it  has  been  with  me ;  that  is  the  way  it 
will  be  with  me.  It's  endless.  Ah,  Margaret,  we  know 
that,  don't  we  ?  Eesistance  can't  stop  it ;  it  piles  it  up. 
And  if  that  is  true  for  us,  how  much  more  it  will  be  true 
for  Philip !  The  fight  must  be  between  brothers,  there, 
with  none  of  the  habit  of  forbearance  on  either  side  that 
makes  certain  things  impossible  between  father  and  son. 
I  can't  see  him  marching  helplessly  into  that  miserable 
maze,  and  involving  an  innocent  girl  as  I  involved  you 
and  him.  I  can't.  I've  got  to  stop  it." 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  437 

"  But  how?  Fighting  only  makes  it  worse.  You  say 
so  yourself,"  she  said  tentatively. 

He  stared  into  her  eyes  a  moment. 

"  I'm  not  going  to  fight,"  he  said.  He  drew  a  long 
breath  as  he  rose.  She  got  up  and  came  to  him,  and,  slip 
ping  her  arm  in  his,  looked  up  into  his  face.  He  glanced 
down  at  her ;  his  eyes  gleamed  with  the  exaltation  of  his 
resolve.  "  I'm  going  to  surrender." 

A  joyous  light  dawned  in  her  eyes. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  you  will  give  him  back  the  ranch 
— that  you  will  restore  everything  as  it  was  before — be 
fore—" 

"  Before  I  took  what  belonged  to  me?  Yes,  Margaret ; 
I'm  going  to  try  your  remedy,  whatever  you  like  to  call  it. 
I've  used  up  all  my  own.  Don't  think  I  like  it.  I  loathe 
it.  But  I'm  going  to  do  it.  I  shall  sell  the  Lady 
Bountiful'  as  soon  as  spring  opens,  and  buy  the  range 
back  from  Snell  at  once.  It  will  be  easy  enough ;  this 
bluffing  suit  of  Jasper's  frightens  him,  though  his  title  is 
perfectly  good ;  and  I  shall  let  Jasper  know  immediately 
— before  the  trial." 

"  0  James ! "  she  murmured,  clutching  his  arm,  and 
looking  up  into  his  face,  lovingly,  admiringly,  happily. 

"  Don't  praise  it,  Margaret,"  he  cried,  turning  hastily 
away  from  her  shining  look,  as  from  something  to  which 
he  had  no  claim,  "  or  I  sha'n't  have  the  heart  to  do  it. 
And  God  knows  I  don't  want  to  do  it."  He  walked  away 
from  her  to  the  window,  and  went  on,  with  his  back  to 
her:  "It's  right;  you  needn't  say  it;  I  know  it.  It's 
right,  and  it's  the  only  thing  to  do,  just  as  it  was  the  only 
thing  to  do  in  the  beginning.  I  see  the  folly  and  error 
of  fighting  evil  with  evil,  fast  enough,  if  that's  what  you 


438  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

want  me  to  see  :  the  way  to  conquer  it  is  to  yield  to  it,  to 
give  it  more  than  it  asks."  He  turned  towards  her  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets.  "  The  mistaken  way  is  to 
strike  back,  and  to  that  mistake  there  is  no  end.  I've 
learned  that.  But  it's  hard,  and  if  I  knew  a  decent  way 
to  dodge  it  I  shouldn't  be  a  hero  about  it.  Don't  im 
agine  it." 

For  answer  to  this  she  simply  put  her  arms  about  his 
neck,  and  drew  his  lips  to  hers. 

"  You  are  hero  enough  for  me,"  she  said. 


XXXIV. 

DOROTHY  drew  back  a  pace  as  her  father  came  up  to 
her  on  the  piazza,  while  Jasper  walked  away  in  the  other 
direction.  Maurice  was  smiling,  and  wiping  his  brow 
with  one  hand ;  in  the  other  he  held  his  parson's  wide 
awake. 

"  It's  warm  walking,"  he  said.  "  Who  was  it  who  just 
left  you  ?  I  thought  his  back  looked  like  Jasper's." 

"  It  was  Mr.  Deed,"  she  said,  trying  to  find  her  voice. 

"Ah,  well,  he  will  be  coming  back,  then.  But  I'm 
sorry  you  did  not  keep  him." 

"  He  is  not  coming  back,"  said  Dorothy,  in  the  same 
still,  controlled  voice.  "  I  want  to  ask  you  something, 
father,"  she  added,  with  an  effort. 

He  looked  at  her  inquiringly. 

"  Well,  my  dear,  what  is  it?"  He  turned  half  about, 
pursuing  Jasper's  retreating  figure  absently.  "  I'm  sorry 
you  did  not  keep  him,"  he  said. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  439 

"  Listen,  father."  She  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm,  and  he 
looked  around  at  her,  surprised  by  her  tone."  Did  you 
borrow  a  large  sum  from  him — from  this  Mr.  Deed?" 

He  started. 

"  He  has  been  telling  you  that  ?  "  cried  he. 

She  went  on,  intent  upon  her  purpose.     "  Is  it  true  ?  " 

He  bit  his  lip.     "  Yes ;  it's  true." 

"  And  did  you  make  Philip  take  his  brother's  mine  to 
pay  that  debt  for  you,  when — when — " 

He  gazed  at  her  sternly ;  he  seized  her  wrist. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  Dorothy?  Are  you 
mad  ?  Don't  let  one  of  your  impulsive  ideas  get  the 
better  of  you.  They  make  you  absurd ;  they  are  very 
young." 

"  Is  it  true  ?  "  she  repeated  in  a  dry,  estranged  voice. 

"  No,"  returned  he,  doggedly ;  "  of  course  it  isn't 
true." 

"  But  you  took  the  money  from  him  to  pay  him  9  " 

He  released  his  hold  on  her  wrist,  and  shuffled  his 
hand  into  his  pockets.  He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

She  stared  at  him  irresolutely.  "  Will  you  answer  me, 
father  ?  "  A  cold  terror  crept  about  her  heart.  "  Did 
you?" 

He  forced  his  vagrant  eye  to  face  her.  "  Excuse  me, 
Dorothy.  There  are  matters  which  I  have  always  re 
served  to  myself.  They  are  not  a  part  of  your  province. 
Please  understand  that  this  is  one  of  them." 

She  put  this  away  with  a  gesture.  "Answer  me, 
please,  father,"  she  said  coldly.  "  Did  you  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  if  you  must  know,"  he  jerked  out  at  last. 
"  But—" 

Her  face  grew  very  white  and  rigid.     "  That  is  all  I 


440  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

want  to  know,"  she  said.  She  clutched  the  work  in  her 
hands  against  her  breast,  and  went  quickly  past  him,  and 
into  the  hotel. 

She  rose  early  the  next  morning,  and  taking  her 
breakfast  in  her  room,  to  avoid  meeting  her  father  (it  had 
to  come,  but  she  did  not  feel  strong  enough  for  it  yet), 
she  walked  out  in  the  early  morning  sunshine  to  the  Gar 
den  of  the  Gods.  As  she  went  through  the  splendid 
gateway,  the  two  towering  masses  of  rock  caught  up  her 
thought  to  the  level  of  their  lonely  summits ;  they  seemed 
to  swim  up  there  in  the  air,  in  the  isolation  of  a  serene 
and  immemorial  past ;  they  made  human  troubles  appear 
small  and  fleeting.  She  walked  on,  finding  a  kind  of 
medicine  in  the  sweet,  stimulating  air  and  the  bright 
sunshine. 

In  the  first  moments  of  her  humiliation  she  had 
thought  that  she  must  seek  refuge  from  her  father  some 
where,  and  Margaret  had  occurred  to  her  as  a  resource. 
Her  shame  for  him  and  for  herself  seemed  in  the  begin 
ning  a  feeling  she  could  never  face  by  his  side.  Their 
life  together  was  too  close  to  leave  an  opening  for  com 
promise  ;  if  she  was  to  remain  with  him  she  knew  that  it 
must  be  as  his  daughter,  with  all  that  the  word  had 
meant  for  her  since  her  mother's  death  ;  and  she  did  not 
see  how  that  could  be ;  it  implied  a  perfect  trust  and 
understanding  between  them  which  no  longer  existed. 
But  she  had  seen  immediately  that  she  could  not  go  away 
from  him  even  for  the  moment ;  her  permanent  feeling 
of  loyalty,  which  she  had  never  allowed  to  falter,  would 
not  suffer  it ;  if  she  could  find  it  in  her  heart  to  leave 
him  upon  one  impulse,  she  saw  that  she  must  straightway 
return  to  him  upon  another.  The  protecting,  almost 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  441 

motherly,  instinct  which  had  taught  her  the  thousand 
cares  for  his  happiness  that  had  so  long  compassed  him 
about  would  not  let  her  forego  her  place  by  his  side. 
Her  eyes  were  opened  (even  if  they  were  not  so  widely 
opened  as  she  supposed),  and  she  seemed  to  be  seeing 
her  father  through  a  new  and  loathly  medium,  which 
distorted  all  that  she  had  trusted  and  loved  in  him  ; 
but  the  love  and  trust  were  actually  stronger  than 
all  newer  feelings.  She  saw  this  almost  at  first,  and 
afterwards  it  was  borne  in  upon  her :  she  took  strength 
from  the  belief  to  face  the  prospect  of  the  days  lived  by 
his  side,  which  seemed  now  to  stretch  in  a  dismal  proces 
sion  far  into  an  unlovely  future. 

She  had  thought  of  going  to  Margaret  at  first,  as  I 
have  said,  but  that  resort  presented  difficulties,  even  if 
she  had  been  resolved  to  go  somewhere,  or  to  some  one. 
She  could  not  tell  her  about  her  father ;  and  if  she  could, 
she  was  not  sure  that  Margaret,  with  all  her  fineness  of 
perception  in  certain  directions,  would  understand. 

No,  it  was  not  Margaret  for  whom  something  in  her 
seemed  to  cry  out.  She  felt  bruised,  disheartened,  dis 
illusioned  ;  she  longed  to  lean  on  a  different  kind  of 
strength.  She  perceived,  in  a  moment,  that  she  was 
thinking  of  Philip ;  and  the  moment  after  faced  the  fact, 
with  all  its  consequences,  without  disquiet.  She  saw  him 
suddenly  as  her  only  refuge,  and  rejoiced,  after  a  tremu 
lous  thought,  in  seeing  him  so. 

His  blundering  force — not  sharpened  to  a  point,  like 
his  brother's,  but  so  sure,  large,  restful — seemed  to  her,  as 
her  heart  went  out  to  him  in  the  exile  to  which  she  had 
condemned  him,  the  most  excellent  thing  in  the  world. 
She  wondered  where  he  was ;  she  had  said  that  she  would 


442  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

see  him  ;  he  would  have  come  back  with  his  father  to 
Maverick.  But  when  he  found  her  gone,  which  way 
would  he  turn  ?  The  thought  came  to  her  that  he  would 
fancy  she  had  fled  from  Maverick,  of  her  own  motion,  to 
avoid  the  consequences  of  her  rash  yielding  to  his  father's 
entreaty.  It  was  suddenly  intolerable  to  her  that  he 
should  think  that,  and  she  thought  she  would  walk  on 
through  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  to  Maiiitou,  and  send  a 
telegram  to  Beatrice  at  Maverick  to  say  where  she  was ; 
she  had  promised  her  that  much,  and  had  not  kept  her 
promise  because  her  father,  for  his  own  reasons,  had  asked 
her  not  to. 

The  unquestioning  obedience  which  had  gone  with 
her  unquestioning  trust  was  broken  down  by  her  new 
vision  of  her  father,  and  the  knowledge  that  he  would 
not  wish  a  thing  was  not  the  final  hindrance  it  had 
seemed  yesterday.  She  quickened  her  pace,  believing  for 
a  moment  that  her  strong  desire  that  Philip  should  not 
think  what  she  fancied  him  thinking  alone  controlled 
her;  but  the  need  for  him — the  need  for  his  strength, 
his  unconscious  manliness,  for  that  open-air  quality  in 
him  which  seemed  to  annul  difficulties  and  anxieties,  for 
his  wholesomeness  and  genuineness — came  over  her  in  an 
irresistible  flood.  And  when  she  had  recognized  this,  she 
did  not  deny  its  meaning  to  herself  in  any  way ;  she  knew 
that  it  was  he  whom  she  wished ;  and  not  for  any  other 
reason  than  for  one  obvious  and  sufficient  one. 

She  had  imagined,  altogether  afresh,  while  she  lay 
awake  during  the  night,  the  persuading  causes  which 
had  led  him  to  the  act  that  had  separated  them,  and  saw 
her  father  in  them  all.  In  her  passionate  wish  to  excul 
pate  Philip  she  perhaps  implicated  her  father,  in  fancy, 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  443 

more  deeply  than  she  could  have  alleged  any  solid  war 
rant  for.  But,  indeed,  in  the  strenuous  swing  to  the  op 
posite  point  of  view  which  had  been  operated  within  her 
with  the  swiftness  and  certainty  of  her  woman's  processes, 
she  now  found  it  as  abundantly  easy  to  discover  excuses 
for  him  as  she  had  before  found  it  abundantly  hard.  And 
the  knowledge  that  her  father  had  injured  him  in  injur 
ing  her  was  not  the  reason  that  it  should  have  been  for 
wishing  that  she  might  never  have  to  face  him  again.  On 
the  contrary. 

The  rattle  of  a  horse's  hoofs  echoed  behind  her  on  the 
hard  road  along  which  she  was  walking,  and  she  turned 
and  saw  Philip  coming  towards  her.  He  reined  in  his 
horse  as  he  came  near.  Her  limbs  trembled  under  her, 
and  she  experienced  an  inconsequent  impulse  to  flight ; 
but  she  walked  on  until  his  voice  behind  her  brought  her 
to  a  halt,  and  she  forced  herself  to  turn  and  look  towards 
him.  He  raised  his  sombrero  as  he  drew  in  his  animal 
by  her  side,  and  with  the  same  motion  threw  himself  off, 
and  stood  beside  her.  He  put  out  his  hand  silently,  and 
she  slipped  hers  into  his  waiting  clasp,  shyly  and  limply 
at  first,  and  then,  as  her  little  hand  was  swallowed  up  in 
the  embrace  of  his  big  one,  and  she  felt  him  bending  over 
her  inquiringly,  anxiously,  tenderly,  she  surrendered  it  to 
him  wholly,  giving  back  his  firm  grip  with  her  own  quick, 
warm,  vigorous  clasp.  Then  she  looked  up  at  him,  and 
read  the  suffering  through  which  she  had  caused  him 
to  pass  in  the  drawn  lines  of  his  strong,  browned,  honest 
face. 

"  Your  father  told  me  I  should  find  you  here,"  he  said. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  dropping  her  eyes. 

"  You  are  not  angry  with  me  for  coming  ?  " 


444  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

She  glanced  up  at  him  again,  her  eyes  filling  perilous 
ly,  helplessly.  In  that  flashing  gaze  he  saw  himself  for 
given  and  blessed.  He  took  her  in  his  arms. 

"But  you  must  tell  me  something  first,"  she  said, 
some  moments  later,  when  they  had  settled  every 
thing. 

"  How  much  I  love  you  ?  "  He  shook  his  head,  with 
a  smile.  "  I  can't." 

"  No,  no  ;  this  is  something  serious." 

"Ah  !"  returned  he,  prolonging  the  intonation. 

"  Oh,  you  know  what  I  mean,"  she  cried,  answering 
the  laughing  look  in  his  eyes.  "  This  is  a  different  kind 
of  seriousness.  I  want  to  ask  you  something." 

"  Well  ?  "  inquired  he,  trying  to  be  as  sober  as  the  oc 
casion  appeared  to  demand. 

"  How  much  did  my  father  have  to  do  with — with 
what  you  did  ?  " 

It  was  a  dangerous  moment.  He  temporized,  as  was 
his  habit.  "  How — your  father  ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  don't 
understand,  Dorothy." 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  do.  I  know  that  he  had  something  to 
do  with  it.  He  has  owned  that  to  me.  It  is  shameful ; 
but  I  must  ask  you.  I  can't  let  you  go  on,  I  can't  go  on 
myself,  not  knowing  what  his  actual  share  was  in — in 
what  you  did." 

"  But  you  have  forgiven  me.  What  difference  can 
anything  else  make  ?  " 

"Does  it  make  no  difference  if  he  really  did  what  I 
have  been  accusing  you  of — and  did  it  without  even  the 
courage  to  do  it  for  himself  ?  Does  it  make  no  difference 
if  he  did  it,  in  fact,  and  chose  you — you,  Philip — to  do  it 
for  him — that  it's  his  wrong,  and  that  he's  let  me  make 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  445 

you  suffer  for  it  ?  No ;  if  that's  true,  we  have  wronged 
you  too  deeply.  I  couldn't — " 

"  Don't  say  it,  Dorothy  !  You  are  mad.  The  wrong, 
whatever  it  was,  was  all  mine." 

"  My  father  profited  by  it.  You  found  a  large  sum 
for  him.  I  know  that.  How  can  I  know  that  he  did  not 
instigate  it  ?  "  she  asked  desperately. 

He  did  not  answer  for  a  moment.  He  felt  himself 
halted.  For  a  single  instance  he  felt  a  kind  of  impatience 
stealing  upon  his  easy-going  nature ;  but  surely  he  could 
grant  her  this  last  barrier  against  full  and  actual  surren 
der,  this  little  withholding  of  herself  from  him.  She 
doubtless  took  it  for  a  sincere  objection.  The  reflection 
lent  him  a  patience  which  taught  him  a  defence  stronger 
in  its  weakness  than  any  other  could  have  been  in  its 
strength.  "  Rubbish,  Dorothy  ! "  he  said ;  "  rubbish  !  No 
one  had  anything  to  do  with  what  I  did  except  myself — 
unless  it  was  some  devil  in  me.  Your  father  was  entirely 
outside  of  the  matter,  and  the  money  you  are  thinking  of 
was  paid  back  to  Jasper  long  ago." 

"  Oh,  was  it?    I  am  so  glad." 

"  Well,  I  was  glad  to  pay  it,"  he  rejoined  soberty.  He 
heaved  a  deep  sigh  of  relief  as  she  turned  away,  and  for 
gave  himself  for  so  much  of  untruth  as  there  was  in  his 
statement  about  her  father's  complicity  as  he  caught  sight 
of  the  glad  smile  on  her  face,  and  remembered  how  hard 
it  would  be  to  say  exactly  what  the  truth  was  about  that. 
He  knew  that  she  could  not  always  rest  content  with  this ; 
but  for  the  moment  it  served,  and  if  it  came  to  another 
moment  he  hoped  to  be  strong  enough  for  it. 

"  He  must  pay  you,"  she  said. 

"  Who  ?  " 


446  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Papa.     It  is  his  debt — doubly  his." 

"  Of  course,"  assented  Philip,  unfalteringly,  turning 
the  sharp  corner  with  the  quick  command  of  resource 
which  this  conversation  was  teaching  him.  "  I  have  his 
notes ;  he  is  to  pay  me  interest  on  them,  and  take  them 
up  as  fast  as  he  has  the  money."  He  said  this  without 
smiling,  though  a  humorous  memory  of  a  long  list  of  such 
arrangements  made  by  himself  on  his  own  behalf  mingled 
in  his  mind  with  the  absurdity  of  the  idea  that  Maurice 
would  redeem  his  obligations.  "  It  is  simply  transferring 
a  debt  from  a  hard  creditor  to  an  easy  one,"  he  said. 

She  wondered  if  he  did  not  see  how  this,  which  looked 
so  innocent  in  his  phrase,  had  involved  her,  how  the  trans 
action  had  simply  used  her,  how  she  had  been  bandied 
about  in  it  by  her  father  like  a  negotiable  security.  She 
did  not  blame  Philip  for  his  share  in  it ;  she  felt  sure — 
too  sure — of  the  absolute  generosity  of  his  motives ;  but 
she  turned  scarlet  with  a  new  sense  of  shame  for  her 
father. 

"  Arid  you  will  let  him  pay  you  ?  " 

His  candid,  good-natured  eyes  did  not  quail,  as  she 
clung  to  him,  studying  his  face. 

"Let  him!  I'll  sue  him,  if  you  like,"  retorted  he, 
fondly.  And  it  occurred  to  him  that  this  might  not  be 
from  every  point  of  view  an  event  without  its  rewards. 
The  talk  which  he  had  had  with  Maurice  before  coming 
on  to  her  had  made  several  things  plain  to  him  ;  none  of 
them  increased  his  fondness  for  Maurice. 

Dorothy  had  to  laugh.  "  You  needn't  do  that,"  she 
said.  They  turned  their  faces  towards  Colorado  Springs, 
and  walked  on  through  the  rock-strewn  park — as  empty 
at  this  hour  as  that  other  park  in  which  they  had  lately 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  447 

parted  so  definitely,  so  finally.  They  found  a  number  of 
things  to  say  to  each  other  which  it  would  not  be  fair  to 
repeat.  Philip  led  his  horse  with  his  arm  through  the 
bridle,  and  Dorothy  retraced  by  his  side  the  steps  she  had 
lately  taken  alone. 

The  shining  of  the  sun  had  seemed  very  good  to  her  a 
few  moments  before  ;  but  it  was  a  dull  radiance  compared 
to  that  which  fell  upon  them  as  they  walked  together — 
walking,  as  she  felt,  into  a  new  life,  into  an  unexplored 
but  happy  future,  into  a  future  made  up  out  of  the  most 
airy  but  the  most  substantial  materials,  a  future  guided 
and  guarded  by  love. 

She  told  him  that  she  knew  she  could  not  guess  how 
she  had  made  him  suffer ;  but  if  anything  could  teach  her, 
it  would  be  her  own  suffering  in  giving  him  that  pain.  It 
was  foolish  to  talk  of  that ;  but  how  were  they  to  be  prop 
erly  happy  if  they  did  not  let  themselves  remember  a  time 
when  they  hadn't  been  ? 

But  they  were,  in  fact,  too  happy  in  having  found  each 
other  again  by  any  means  to  study  very  minutely  the  pro 
cess  by  which  they  had  rediscovered  that  they  were  neces 
sary  to  each  other.  Only  Philip  must  sometimes  say,  for 
mere  uneasiness  in  his  restoration  to  her  trust : 

"  You'd  better  say  again  that  you  forgive  me.  Or  per 
haps  you'd  better  say  you  don't.  If  you  say  you  do,  it 
makes  me  happy,  of  course:  but  that  isn't  the  point. 
You'd  better  harden  your  heart  for  your  own  sake." 

She  merely  smiled  at  him. 

"  Dorothy,"  he  went  on  more  seriously,  "  I'm  really  all 
that  you  thought  me.  Your  pardon  is  heaven  to  me; 
one  must  have  known  the  other  thing  to  know  the  sweet 
ness  of  your  trust ;  but  I  mustn't  abuse  it.  I  did  exactly 
29 


448  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

what  you  said.  I  took  the  '  Little  Cipher '  from  Jasper, 
knowing  it  to  be  his  by  all  the  laws  that  make  right  right 
and  wrong  wrong  for  men  anywhere ;  and  I  saw  long  ago 
how  it  was  all  you  said,  and  more  than  you  said,  touching 
you  and  me  and  our  love.  You'd  better  take  back  your 
forgiveness." 

She  shook  her  head.  "  I  can't  take  back  what  I  never 
gave.  If  I  were  to  forgive  you,  I  should  have  to  judge 
first;  and  " — with  a  little  lift  of  her  eyes — "  I  can't  judge 
you,  Philip,  any  more."  And  then,  in  a  moment,  to  turn 
him  from  this  difficult  subject,  "  How  did  you  leave  your 
father  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Ah,  it's  to  him  I  owe  you  !  "  he  cried.  "  He  never 
said  it ;  he  merely  brought  me  your  message.  But  I 
know  it  well  enough.  It's  from  him  you've  taken  a  pic 
turesque  version  of  the  facts  which  enables  you  to  think 
well  of  me.  If  you  had  known  him,  Dorothy,  you  would 
have  been  on  your  guard ;  you  would  have  understood  that 
he  never  sees  quite  straight;  he  sees  too  heartily,  too 
warmly,  and  too  hot-headedly  to  be  a  safe  witness — espe 
cially  where  he  cares.  He  cares  so  much — that  splendid, 
downright  father  of  mine  !  " 

"  Oh,  he's  good  !  I  have  been  so  sorry  for  him.  It 
was  being  sorry  for  him  that  first  helped  me  to  be  a 
little  sorry  for  you,  you  know." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  he  answered  vaguely  to  her  roguish 
smile,  rather  than  to  her  words  (it  is  difficult  to  confine 
one's  replies  altogether  to  the  theme  of  actual  discourse 
in  these  situations;  there  are  interruptions).  He  added 
in  a  moment :  "  You  couldn't  have  minded  about  me  for 
any  one  else's  sake  so  safely.  It  is  always  safe  to  do  a 
thing  because  you  like  father  ! " 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  449 

i  "  Oh,  I  don't  know  for  whose  sake  I  sent  that  mes 
sage,"  she  declared  ambiguously.  She  flashed  a  look  at 
him,  and  challenged  his  smile  with,  "  I  didn't  say  it  was 
for  yours." 

"  No,"  laughed  Philip. 

"  No ;  I  think  it  was  for  my  own,"  she  assured  herself. 
"  I  wanted  to  make  sure  that  I  had  been  right." 

She  joined  in  his  smile.  "  Well,  you're  sure  now," 
he  said. 

"  Am  I  ?  But  now  you  see  I  don't  know  whether  I 
am  right  to  be  sure."  They  could  laugh  at  anything,  and 
they  laughed  at  this. 

"  That  you  were  wrong  ? "  queried  he.  "  No  ;  I 
shouldn't  like  you  to  be  sure  of  that.  You  were  alto 
gether  in  the  right,  Dorothy,"  he  told  her  more  seriously. 
"  Your  only  mistake  is  in  pardoning  me.  Take  it  back 
while  there  is  time." 

"  I'll  see  about  it,"  rejoined  she,  with  a  baffling  glance 
at  him  which  temporarily  put  an  end  to  the  discussion. 
"  But  how  did  you  find  us  ?  How  did  you  know  where 
we  were  ?  "  she  asked  suddenly,  as  she  disengaged  herself. 
This  simple  question  had  not  occurred  to  either  of  them 
hitherto. 

"  Why,  I  didn't  find  you,  exactly ;  I  partly  stumbled 
on  you.  But  the  finding,  such  as  it  was,  is  Vertner's. 
His  acquaintance  with  the  whole  fraternity  of  railway 
conductors  was  a  blessing  for  once.  One  of  them  remem 
bered  that  you  had  travelled  with  him  this  far.  After 
that  I  had  to  hunt  you  up,  or  rather  your  father,  and  he 
sent  me  on." 

"It  wasn't  fair  of  the  conductor  to  tell,"  she  re 
marked. 


450  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  No,"  said  Philip,  with  equal  seriousness ;  "  that's 
what  I  thought." 

Nonsense  like  this  floated  on  the  current  of  their 
mood,  and  they  welcomed  it  as  a  defence  against  more 
serious  things.  There  was  so  much  to  be  said  between 
them  that  by  a  common  impulse  they  avoided  trying  to 
say  any  of  it,  except  as  they  said  it  in  the  interchange  of 
silent  glances.  They  seemed  to  themselves  to  have  plenty 
of  time  before  them ;  they  best  realized  their  happiness 
for  the  moment  through  a  sense  of  the  leisure  which 
allowed  them  to  feel  that  they  could  play  with  it. 

Long  silences  fell  between  them,  and  they  would  walk 
on,  hearing  no  sound  but  their  own  footsteps,  and  those 
of  the  horse  following  them ;  and  at  these  times  they 
let  the  sunshine,  the  gay,  brisk,  bright  morning,  which 
seemed  made  for  them,  and  the  massive  beauty  of  the 
park,  express  their  bliss  for  them  in  their  various  voices. 
But  they  had  to  talk,  too,  and  they  spoke  a  good  deal,  in 
a  fragmentary,  unserious  way,  of  their  future ;  they  specu 
lated  luxuriously  about  it,  they  made  and  unmade  plans, 
they  warned  each  other  affectionately  that  neither  must 
build  too  much  on  the  virtue  and  solidity  of  the  other's 
character  in  scheming  this  life  together.  But  they  said 
they  would  be  constant,  and  that  must  be  their  sure 
armour  against  all  doubts  and  differences — the  certainty 
that  they  were  all  in  all  to  each  other.  They  owned  so 
berly  the  differences  of  character  existing  between  them, 
but  they  agreed  that  it  was  largely  these  which  had 
drawn  them  together,  and  they  promised  each  other  to  re 
spect  them  always,  if  for  no  other  reason ;  they  said  that 
they  should  rejoice  in  them. 

Philip  told  her  that  he  should  not  even  be  jealous  of 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  45 1 

her  having  all  the  sense  in  the  family;  every  one  had 
been  telling  him,  since  lie  had  been  old  enough  to  make 
mistakes,  that  what  he  needed  was  a  "balance-wheel"; 
he  should  have  one  now,  and  nothing  could  be  more  use 
less  than  a  balance-wheel  that  kept  quiet.  He  said  he 
should  be  rid,  now,  of  the  left-handed  compliment  that 
he  had  excellent  "  works,"  but  no  contrivance  for  keeping 
them  in  running  order,  and  making  them  perform  their 
functions.  It  appeared  that  their  functions  would  be 
brilliant,  if  the  lack  were  supplied.  Now  they  should 
see !  If  they  weren't,  it  would  be  her  fault. 

"  Oh,  I  sha'n't  be  strict  with  you,  if  that's  what  you 
are  hoping  for,"  she  declared ;  "  I've  had  enough  of  that." 

"  But  I  haven't.  It's  the  only  thing  for  me.  I  shall 
never  be  of  any  use  without  it.  And  you  must  remember 
I've  got  to  earn  our  living.  When  you  see  that,  perhaps 
sternness  will  come  easier  to  you." 

"  I  don't  know.     Shall  I  never  have  a  holiday?  " 

"  Well,  you'll  have  to  spend  a  good  deal  of  your  time 
forgiving  me  for  the  daily  assortment  of  folly  and  reck 
lessness.  You  might  lie  off  for  that." 

"  Ah,  that's  all  very  well.  But,  as  Mr.  Vertner  says, 
'  Where  do  I  come  in? ' " 

"  Dear  old  Vertner  ! "  exclaimed  Philip,  in  the  over 
flow  of  his  liking  for  the  world.  "  What  a  first-rate,  un 
principled,  warm-hearted,  loyal  good  fellow  he  is  !  He 
wouldn't  like  your  not  coming  in  handsomely.  But 
where  don't  you  come  in?  I  don't  see  but  you've  got 
your  work  cut  out  for  you." 

"My  work,  yes;  but  my  pleasure — how  about  that? 
If  I'm  to  spend  all  my  time  correcting  your  faults,  how 
shall  I  ever  find  a  moment  to  enjoy  them  ?  " 


452  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"  Enjoy  them  ?  " 

"  Well,  of  course  I  like  them.  How  should  I  like  you 
if  I  didn't?" 

"  Yes,"  admitted  Philip,  meditatively ;  "  they  do  cover 
most  of  the  territory  in  sight." 

She  laid  a  silencing  hand  on  his  lips.  "  Hush ! "  she 
said.  "  It  is  I  who  am  all  faults.  You  will  find  it  all 
you  can  do  to  get  along  with  me." 

He  stopped  short  in  the  road  along  which  they  were 
going,  and  took  her  in  his  arms.  He  looked  down  into 
her  face  for  a  long  moment  tenderly. 

"  I'll  risk  it,"  he  said. 


XXXV. 

"  WELL,  that's  over ! "  exclaimed  Vertner,  one  after 
noon  a  month  later,  as  he  opened  the  door  of  their  house 
for  his  wife,  and  followed  her  in.  "  I  must  say  I  don't 
feel  like  coming  back  home  and  settling  down  to  the  old 
humdrum  routine  after  an  event  like  this.  Can't  we 
have  some  champagne  ?  " 

"  In  the  middle  of  the  afternoon?" 

"  No ;  I  suppose  not.  But  I  feel  the  need  of  some  ex 
citement.  Perhaps  we  have  reached  the  climax,  though. 
They  looked  very  happy  going  away,  didn't  they  ? 

Beatrice  seated  herself  provisionally  in  her  wedding 
finery,  stooping  first  to  pick  up  one  of  Edward's  toys 
from  the  floor.  They  had  drifted  into  the  room  in  which 
Margaret  had  borne  to  see  Deed  go  from  her  in  anger  on 
another  wedding-day.  The  iron  pyrites  still  winked  from 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  453 

the  what-not ;  the  Navajo  blanket  continued  to  do  duty 
as  a  portiere ;  the  rag  carpet  was  on  the  floor ;  the 
stained-glass  window,  through  which  the  sun  was  shining 
at  the  moment,  continued  to  take  itself  without  serious 
ness. 

"  Yes,"  said  Beatrice,  smoothing  her  silk  thoughtfully 
with  long,  ruminating  fingers ;  "  they  did  look  very  happy 
going  away.  But  do  you  suppose  they  will  be  able  to 
keep  it  up  ?  " 

Vertner  hovered  restlessly  about,  without  sitting  down. 
"  What  makes  you  think  they  won't?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  didn't  say  they  wouldn't.     I  was  only  wondering." 

Vertner  sighed,  and  gave  an  absent  touch  to  the  lav 
ender  tie  of  festal  effect  which  he  had  worn  in  honour  of 
the  occasion. 

"  It's  a  large  field  for  speculation — any  marriage,"  he 
said.  "  Perhaps  this  is  a  little  extra  large.  But,  then, 
they're  both  extra  nice.  I  guess  it  will  go." 

"You  wouldn't  say  that — "  began  Beatrice,  doubt 
fully. 

"  Yes,  I  would.  There  are  a  lot  of  things  of  that  kind 
that  I  could  say ;  but  there  are  answers  to  all  of  them. 
Yes,"  he  repeated  meditatively,  after  a  moment,  "  all  of 
them.  You  see  they  are  interested  in  each  other.  They 
won't  get  tired  of  each  other's  conversation  right  away ; 
and  by  the  time  they  begin  to— well,  I  shouldn't  wonder 
if  Dorothy  were  a  little  older." 

"  Oh  ! "  gasped  Mrs.  Vertner,  as  if  she  had  been  sur 
prised  in  a  covert  thought ;  "  do  you  think  that,  too, 
Ned?" 

"  I  have  thought  it ;  but  only  at  moments.  In  the 
other  moments — " 


454  BENEFITS  FORGOT. 

"Well?" 

"  I've  thought  that  Phil  might  be  something  of  a  trial 
to  a  woman  at  any  age." 

"  I  don't  believe  you  think  any  such  thing,"  declared 
his  wife,  promptly.  "  Why,  there's  something  almost 
likable  even  about  his  faults." 

"  Yes.  Have  you  noticed  that  is  what  every  one  says  ? 
I  say  it  myself,  and  I  stick  to  it.  But  hasn't  it  occurred 
to  you  that  in  some  situations — like  a  wife's,  for  example 
— a  man's  faults  can't  be  the  perennial  joy  that  they  are 
to  an  impartial  outsider  like  you,  who  doesn't  have  to 
breakfast  with  them  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  know,  Ned,    But  Philip  is  so  good." 

"  Ah,  now  you've  hit  it !  He's  a  good  fellow  :  that's  ex 
actly  what  he  is — the  best.  And  if  his  need  to  be  a  good 
fellow  sometimes  makes  him  a  good  fellow  at  some  one 
else's  expense,  why  that's  only  what  you  mean  by  his  faults 
being  likable.  If  he  has  the  sense  to  avoid  being  some 
time  or  other  a  good  fellow  at  his  wife's  expense, — or 
what  she  will  think  her  expense  :  that's  the  real  trouble, — 
I  don't  see  why  she  shouldn't  continue  to  admire  him  for 
the  manly  and  charming  fellow  he  is,  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter.  She  starts  in  with  one  great  advantage  :  she  is 
acquainted  with  him." 

"And  with  another,"  added  the  practical  Beatrice: 
"  that  they  are  not  to  live  with  her  father." 

"  Yes ;  that's  almost  the  pleasantest  thing  about  the 
marriage — that  it  sets  her  free  of  her  father."  He  seated 
himself  in  the  chair  before  the  fire,  where  he  sat  in  the 
evenings  to  read  the  Denver  papers ;  and,  after  piling  on 
a  couple  of  logs,  stretched  out  his  feet  cozily  to  the  crack 
ling  blaze.  "  I  don't  see  any  harm  in  his  new  field  of 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  455 

labour  being  $60  or  $70  to  the  eastward.  I  shouldn't  be 
sorry  to  see  the  fare  raised — if  I  could  always  be  sure  of  a 
pass.  I  believe  you'll  see  great  changes  in  her :  she  will 
be  just  as  nice,  but  differently  nice.  Come  to  think  of  it, 
she  will  have  to  be  rather  nice  to  be  really  worthy  of  Phil. 
That  little  piece  of  business  of  his  at  Pinon  just  before 
his  father  found  him,  and  he  went  down  to  Colorado 
Springs  to  look  her  up,  is  the  kind  of  thing  that  might 
help  a  woman  to  like  him  exclusively  for  his  virtues — if 
she  knew  about  it." 

"  You  mean  his  selling  the  '  Pay  Ore '  to  pay  Jasper 
back  $5,000  when  he  found  that  those  Ryan  people  had 
opened  a  paying  vein  in  his  own  mine  ?  Yes ;  that  was 
strong  in  him." 

"  Strong  !  Well,  if  you'd  ever  opened  a  true  fissure 
vein  that  showed  all  the  symptoms  of  making  an  income 
of  $3,000  a  month  for  you,  for  four  or  five  years  to  come, 
and  had  sold  your  claim  to  raise  ready  money,  you  would 
think  it  strong.  It's  the  sort  of  thing  to  make  any  one 
who  ever  owned  a  mine  think  Phil  about  right.  When 
I  remember  that,  I  have  to  believe  that  if  they  are  not 
happy,  it  will  be  her  fault.  Think  of  the  rascal  never 
having  told  her  about  it ! " 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she  had  a  good  many 
things  to  learn." 

"  About  her  father,  yes.  But  she'll  never  learn  them 
from  him.  And  Maurice's  being  so  far  away  will  prevent 
the  question  from  coming  up,  I  hope,  for  her  sake.  Talk 
about  aproposity," — this  was  one  of  Vertner's  words, — 
"  what  do  you  say  to  Maurice's  finding  that  position  in 
New  York  ?  I  always  said  he  had  a  manner.  Now  he's 
found  a  place  where  he  can  use  it.  To  be  assistant  rector 


456  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

of  a  fashionable  city  congregation,  where  the  people  de 
mand  a  certain  distinction,  and  don't  haggle  too  much 
about  the  salary  they  give  for  it,  or  the  sincerity  they 
get  back  for  it,  is  a  position  in  which  Maurice  can't  help 
shining  if  he  tries.  A  place  like  that,  where  too  much 
earnestness  would  imply  a  criticism  on  the  congregation, 
and  be  in  a  man's  way,  would  have  been  a  great  thing  for 
him  if  it  had  come  to  him  younger ;  he  might  never  have 
found  himself  out.  And  even  as  it  is  (if  he  can  keep  the 
place — if  this  story  doesn't  rise  to  plague  him),  imagine 
his  parish  visits !  He  will  raise  them  to  the  dignity  of  a 
career.  And  how  he  will  manage  the  music  ! " 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  Beatrice,  coming  over  and  stand 
ing  near  him  by  the  fire,  with  her  elbow  on  the  mantel ; 
"  I'm  sorry  for  him.  Did  you  see  him  this  afternoon, 
after  the  .service,  when  Dorothy  said  good-bye  to  him  in 
the  vestry?  He  really  cares  for  her;  I  shall  always  say 
that  for  him." 

"Oh,  don't  tell  me  that  he  has  his  good  points,"  re 
torted  Vertner,  rising.  "I'm  his  consistent  admirer. 
Haven't  I  praised  him  since  the  first  day  I  saw  him  ?  I 
hope  I  know  what  is  due  to  an  editor  who  has  had  the 
discretion  to  relieve  me  of  an  inconvenient  reputation, 
and  doesn't  mind  leaving  his  money  in  the  business." 

"I  wish  you'd  give  up  that  wretched  paper,  Ked." 

"  Why,  the  Salvation  Army  people  were  around  yester 
day  suggesting  that  very  idea.  I  think  I  will." 

"  Yes ;  I  suppose  they  are  afraid  of  its  influence,"  said 
Beatrice. 

Her  husband  stared  at  her  for  a  moment ;  then  he 
snatched  her  down  upon  his  knee  with  a  howl  of  de 
light. 


BENEFITS  FORGOT.  457 

"  Yes ;  that's  it,"  he  agreed.  "  They  are  frightened 
at  the  way  I'm  spreading  churchly  ideas  among  my  two 
hundred  and  thirty-four  subscribers.  They  want  to  buy 
me  off." 

"  No,  but  seriously,  Ned  ?  " 

"  Well,  they  want  a  paper  of  their  own,  under  another 
name,  and  they  see  that  the  '  Kalendar '  has  the  plant  and 
all  that  ready  for  them.  They  heard  that  I  knew  when  I 
had  had  enough,  and  they  made  me  an  offer." 

"  And  you've  accepted  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,  at  a  loss  of  a  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

"  Absurd ! " 

"  Didn't  I  expect  to  make  that  out  of  the  paper  when 
I  started  in  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  so,"  admitted  Beatrice,  with  a  smile. 

"Well,  then,"  challenged  her  husband.  "And  that 
isn't  the  only  thing  I've  lost,  either.  I've  lost  my  confi 
dence  in  human  nature.  I  supposed  you  could  give  people 
anything." 

"  And  can't  you  ?  " 

"  Not  the  '  Kalendar,'  with  the  Rev.  George  Maurice 
as  editor.  Heigho !  I  was  sorry  Deed  was  so  cold  to 
him." 

"  Oh,  I  think  he  feels  very  sore  about  Mr.  Maurice's 
connection  with  what  Philip  did — with  that  matter  of 
Jasper's  mine." 

"  Don't  call  it  Jasper's  mine,  please,  Trix." 

"  But  what  shall  I  call  it  ?    It  is  his  mine,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  it's  become  so — by  a  fluke ;  but  it  isn't  ladylike 
to  press  the  point." 

He  regarded  her  with  a  quizzical  smile,  and  Beatrice 
burst  into  a  little  rejoicing  laugh.  "  You  are  trying  to 


458  BENEFITS   FORGOT. 

set  me  a  standard  for  Dorothy's  behaviour,  I  think,"  she 
said. 

"  If  she  falls  below  the  standard  I  shall  punish  you  for 
it.  I  don't  mind  letting  you  know  that.  Well,  I  don't 
care,"  he  declared  warmly,  after  a  moment ;  "  it  would 
be  mean  to  take  a  man  back,  and  forgive  him,  hand 
somely,  and  persuade  him  that  there  was  a  new  deal  and 
then  to  twit  him  at  appropriate  moments  about  the  old 
hand,  in  the  face  of  it." 

"  Of  course  it  would,"  assented  Beatrice,  with  equal 
warmth  ;  "  but  Dorothy  isn't  like  that." 

"No,"  returned  Vertner,  reflectively;  "women  are, 
but  probably  Dorothy  isn't.  It's  really  a  kind  of  gener 
osity  that  has  made  her  hard  with  him,  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she  knew  how  to  be  at 
least  as  generous  in  forgiving  as  in  condemning.  I  guess 
•we  can  trust  her.  But  it  would  be  a  temptation  for 
some  women — living  next  door  to  the  subject  of  discus 
sion." 

"  Yes,  yes,  Ned  ;  but  you  will  see.  To  Dorothy  that 
mine  in  sight  from  her  door  will  be  like  a  sacred  pledge — 
a  guarantee,  if  you  can  think  she  needs  one.  His  having 
done  that — his  having  sold  the  mine  to  meet  that  debt  to 
Jasper,  and  then  having  taken  the  position  of  superin 
tendent  in  his  own  mine  under  the  new  owners — " 

"  Yes ;  it  does  rather  force  her  to  cast  a  benevolent 
eye  on  the  '  Little  Cipher '  as  a  part  of  the  view  from  their 
cabin  window.  But  it  will  make  it  embarrassing  for  Jas 
per  if  he  should  want  to  look  after  the  '  Little  Cipher ' 
himself  when  the  Ryans'  lease  is  up,  won't  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Jasper  !  "  exclaimed  Beatrice,  impatiently  ;  "  I 
don't  care  about  Jasper  ! "  She  drew  off  her  long  white 


BENEFITS   FORGOT.  459 

wedding-gloves,  and,  rising  from  his  knee,  began  slowly 
to  smooth  them  out  upon  the  mantel. 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  her  husband  from  the  window, 
"  that's  the  limitation  of  your  sex — your  not  caring  about 
Jasper.  You  have  to  like  people  to  be  interested  in  them. 
Where's  your  miscellaneous  human  interest  ? "  he  asked, 
turning  upon  her. 

"  It  isn't  centred  in  Jasper,"  replied  Beatrice,  with  a 
smile. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  spectacle  of  that  suc 
cessful  young  man's  first  defeat  doesn't  move  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  enjoyed  that  on  Mr.  Deed's  account." 

"  I  should  hope  you  did  !  If  I  were  Deed,  and  had  a 
friend  who  didn't  enjoy  that  up  to  the  hilt,  I'd  disown 
him.  It  was  sublime." 

"  It  was  effective,"  admitted  Beatrice. 

"  Effective  ?  It  was  a  ten-strike.  It  bowled  Jasper 
out.  And  it  was  the  only  thing  that  could  have  done 
it.  At  a  casual  glance — that  is  to  say,  at  a  fool  glance 
— it  looks  weak.  When  you  come  to  your  senses  you 
see  how  weak  it  was.  If  I  had  enough  of  that  sort  of 
weakness,  I'd  take  a  contract  to  twist  the  earth  back 
ward." 

"  You  needn't  do  that,  Ned,  to  prove  that  Mr.  Deed 
did  the  best  and  bravest  thing.  I'm  ready  enough  to 
admit  that  anything  that  humiliates  Jasper  as  much  as 
that  must  have  a  good  deal  of  some  kind  of  force." 

"Ah,  yes,"  cried  Vertner,  in  sober  joy  ;  "  it  did  weary 
him,  didn't  it  ?  Taken  with  Dorothy's  dismissal,  it  seems 
as  if  it  might  also  save  you  the  trouble  of  disliking  him. 
My  word  for  it,  he  is  disliking  himself." 

"  And  yet  he  has  the  ranch  back ;  he  is  to  have  it 


460  BENEFITS    FORGOT. 

under  his  sole  charge  for  the  rest  of  the  partnership 
term  ;  he  has  all  that  he  has  claimed." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  assented  Vertner,  heartily,  with  emphatic 
nods  of  his  small,  shrewd,  blond  head  ;  "  that's  just  the 
pesky  part  of  it.  He  was  safe  against  every  chance  but 
that ;  and  if  it  had  happened  to  be  anybody  but  Deed,  he 
would  have  been  safer  against  that  chance  than  any.  But 
it  did  happen  to  be  Deed,  you  see.  Jasper  had  a  perfect 
position.  The  incalculable  has  happened,  and  left  him 
with  no  position  at  all.  It  makes  the  poor  fellow  feel 
foolish." 

"  But  I  don't  believe  that  was  Mr.  Deed's  object." 

"  No  ;  and  that's  the  other  pretty  and  excellent  point 
about  it.  He  has  accomplished  exactly  what  he  has  been 
after  from  the  beginning,  by  giving  it  up  and  turning  his 
back  on  it." 

"  Yes  ;  I  suppose  he  has  won,  as  we  should  say.  But 
now  he  doesn't  seem  to  care.  He  seems  to  have  got  past 
that." 

"Ah,"  cried  Vertner,  as  he  seated  himself  in  his  chair 
before  the  fire,  and  held  out  his  hands  contentedly  to  the 
blaze,  "  that  is  winning.  It's  a  good  thing  to  win.  But 
I  shouldn't  wonder  if  the  best  thing  was  not  to  need  to 
win." 


THE    END. 


M 


D.   APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 


ANY  INVENTIONS.  By  RUDYARD  KIPLING. 
Containing  fourteen  stories,  several  of  which  are  now  pub 
lished  for  the  first  time,  and  two  poems.  I2mo,  427  pages. 
Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  The  reader  turns  from  its  pages  with  the  conviction  that  the  author  has  no  supe 
rior  to-day  in  animated  narrative  and  virility  of  style.  He  remains  master  of  a  power 
in  which  none  of  his  contemporaries  approach  him — the  ability  to  select  out  of  countless 
details  the  few  vital  ones  which  create  the  finished  picture.  He  knows  how,  with  a 
phrase  or  a  word,  to  make  you  see  his  characters  as  he  sees  them,  to  make  you  feel 
the  full  meaning  of  a  dramatic  situation." — New  York  'Iribune. 

'"Many  Inventions'  will  confirm  Mr.  Kipling's  reputation.  .  .  .  We  would  cite 
with  pleasure  sentences  from  almost  every  page,  and  extract  incidents  from  almost 
every  story.  But  to  what  end  ?  Here  is  the  completest  book  that  Mr.  Kipling  has  yet 
given  us  in  workmanship,  the  weightiest  and  most  humane  in  breadth  of  view." — 
Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"  Mr.  Kipling's  powers  as  a  story-teller  are  evidently  not  diminishing.  We  advise 
everybody  to  buy  '  Many  Inventions,'  and  to  profit  by  some  of  the  best  entertainment 
that  modern  fiction  has  to  offer." — New  York  Sun. 

"  '  Many  Inventions  '  will  be  welcomed  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken. 
.  .  .  Every  one  of  the  stories  bears  the  imprint  of  a  master  who  conjures  up  incident 
as  if  by  magic,  and  who  portrays  character,  scenery,  and  feeling  with  an  ease  which  is 
only  exceeded  by  the  boldness  of  force." — Boston  Globe. 

"The  book  will  get  and  hold  the  closest  attention  of  the  reader." — American 
Bookseller. 

"  Mr.  Rudyard  Kipling's  place  in  the  world  of  letters  is  unique.  He  sits  quite  aloof 
and  alone,  the  incomparable  and  inimitable  master  of  the  exquisitely  fine  art  of  short- 
story  writing.  Mr.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  has  perhaps  written  several  tales  which 
match  the  run  of  Mr.  Kipling's  work,  but  the  best  of  Mr.  Kipling's  tales  are  matchless, 
and  his  latest  collection,  'Many  Inventions,'  contains  several  such." — Philadelphia 
Press. 

"Of  late  essays  in  fiction  the  work  of  Kipling  can  be  compared  to  only  three — 
Blackmore's  '  Lorna  Doone,'  Stevenson's  marvelous  sketch  of  Villon  in  the  'New 
Arabian  Nights,'  and  Thomas  Hardy's  '  T ess  of  the  D'Urbervilles.'  .  .  .  It  is  probably 
owing  to  this  extreme  care  that  '  Many  Inventions  '  is  undoubtedly  Mr.  Kipling's  best 
book." — Chicago  Post. 

"  Mr.  Kipling's  style  is  too  well  known  to  American  readers  to  require  introduction, 
but  it  can  scarcely  be  amiss  to  say  there  is  not  a  story  in  this  collection  that  does  not 
more  than  repay  a  perusal  of  them  all." — Baltimore  American. 

"  As  a  writer  of  short  stories  Rudyard  Kipling  is  a  genius.  He  has  had  imitators, 
but  they  have  not  been  successful  in  dimming  the  luster  of  his  achievements  by  con 
trast.  .  .  .  'Many  Inventions'  is  the  title.  And  they  are  inventions — entirely  origi 
nal  in  incident,  ingenious  in  plot,  and  startling  by  their  boldness  and  force." — Rochester 
Herald. 

"How  clever  he  is!  This  must  always  be  the  first  thought  on  reading  such  a 
collection  of  Kipling's  stories.  Here  is  art — art  of  the  most  consummate  sort.  Com 
pared  with  this,  the  stories  of  our  brightest  young  writers  become  commonplace."— 
New  York  Evangelist. 

"  Taking  the  group  as  a  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  the  execution  is  up  to  his  best 
in  the  past,  while  two  or  three  sketches  surpass  in  rounded  strength  and  vividness  of 
imagination  anything  else  he  has  done." — Hartford  Courant. 

"Fifteen  more  extraordinary  sketches:  without  a  tinge  of  sensationalism,  it  would 
be  hard  to  find.  .  .  .  Every  one  has  an  individuality  of  its  own  which  fascinates  the 
reader." — Boston  Times. 


New  York :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  I,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


T 


A 


D.  APPLETON  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

BOOKS  BY  SARA  JEANNETTE  DUNCAN. 

SIMPLE  ADVENTURES  OF  A  MEM  SA 
HIB.  By  SARA  JEANNETTE  DUNCAN.  With  37  Illustrations 
by  F.  H.  TOWNSEND.  I2mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

"  It  is  impossible  for  Sara  Jeannette  Duncan  to  be  otherwise  than  interesting. 
Whether  it  be  a  voyage  around  the  world,  or  an  American  girl's  experiences  in  Lon 
don  society,  or  the  adventures  pertaining  to  the  establishment  of  a  youthful  couple  in 
India,  there  is  always  an  atmosphere,  a  quality,  a  charm  peculiarly  her  own."— Brook 
lyn  Standard-Union. 

"  It  is  like  traveling  without  leaving  one's  armchair  to  read  it.  Miss  Duncan  has 
the  descriptive  and  narrative  gift  in  large  measure,  and  she  brings  vividly  before  us 
the  street  scenes,  the  interiors,  the  bewilderingly  queer  natives,  the  gayeties  of  the 
English  colony." — Philadelphia  Telegraph. 

"  Another  witty  and  delightful  book." — Philadelphia  Times. 

SOCIAL  DEPARTURE:  How  Orthodocia  and  I 
Went  Round  the  World  by  Ourselves.  By  SARA  JEANNETTE 
DUNCAN.  With  in  Illustrations  by  F.  H.  TOWNSEND.  i2mo. 
Paper,  75  cents  ;  cloth,  $1.75. 

"  Widely  read  and  praised  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  with  scores  of 
illustrations  which  fit  the  text  exactly  and  show  the  mind  of  artist  and  writer  in  unison." 
— New  \  ork  Evening  Post. 

"  It  is  to  be  doubted  whether  another  book  can  be  found  so  thoroughly  amusing 
from  beginning  to  end."— Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

"For  sparkling  wit,  irresistibly  contagious  fun,  keen  observation,  absolutely  poetic 
appreciation  of  natural  beauty,  and  vivid  descriptiveness,  it  has  no  recent  rival  " — Mrs. 
P.  T.  BAKNUM'S  Letter  to  the  New  York  Tribune. 

"  A  brighter,  merrier,  more  entirely  charming  book  would  be,  indeed,  difficult  to 
find." — St.  Louis  Republic. 

N  AMERICAN  GIRL  IN  LONDON.  By  SARA 
JEANNETTE  DUNCAN.  With  80  Illustrations  by  F.  H.  TOWN- 
SEND,  lamo.  Paper,  75  cents  ;  cloth,  $1.50. 

"  One  of  the  most  nai've  and  entertaining  books  of  the  season." — New  York  Ob 
server. 

"  The  raciness  and  breeziness  which  made  '  A  Social  Departure,'  by  the  same 
author,  last  season,  the  best-read  and  most-talked-of  book  of  travel  for  many  a  year, 
permeate  the  new  book,  and  appear  between  the  lines  of  every  page." — Brooklyn 
Standa  rd-  Union . 

"  So  sprightly  a  book  as  this,  on  life  in  London  as  observed  by  an  American,  has 
never  before  been  written." — Philadelphia  Bulletin. 

"Overrunning  with  cleverness  and  good-will." — New  York  Commercial  Adver 
tiser. 

"  We  shall  not  interfere  with  the  reader's  privilege  to  find  out  for  herself  what,  after 
her  presentation  at  court  and  narrow  escape  from  Cupid's  meshes  in  England,  becomes 
of  the  American  girl  who  is  the  gay  theme  of  the  book.  Sure  we  are  that  no  one  who 
takes  up  the  volume — which,  by  the  way,  is  cunningly  illustrated — will  lay  it  down 
until  his  or  her  mind  is  at  rest  on  this  point." — Toronto  Mail. 


A 


New  York :   D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  i,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


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